Religion Dispatches
…g Benjamin, taught the people at the temple (see Jacob 1:17; Mosiah 1:18). Significantly, when the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ appeared to the Nephites in A.D. 34, He came to the temple (see 3 Nephi 11:1–11). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “The Church is not fully organized, in its proper order, and cannot be, until the Temple is completed, where places will be provided for the administration of the ordinances of the Priesthood.” The LDS.org w…
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…e violence, as if all we need to understand the one is the other. One sure sign of an Islamophobe is this: you need only remove a few words here and there and their argument pertains with equal vehemence to the West, or Christianity, or Europe. ‘All Muslims are x,’ they say, ‘because some Muslims do x.’ Surely the stuff Western civilization was built off of. V. One Of Us is Rubber and The Other is Glue Many Islamophobes desperately want to be enga…
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…declaration was welcome news. The National Action network posted a letter signed by Rev. Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Melanie Campbell, and Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery embracing the decision, while Rev. Jamal Bryant, megachurch prosperity pastor, was vocal in his opposition: Our faith reserves marriage for a man and a woman. President Obama, as a product of the black church, is fully aware of that. Knowing this, the president made this endorsement withou…
Read More…ey’re gravely concerned about Israeli policies in (choose your political designation) the West Bank/the Occupied Territories/Occupied Palestine, but they’re also aware that the situation is extraordinarily complex, and that they risk alienating Jewish allies—and even engaging in anti-Semitism—if they misspeak or misstep. Activists, meanwhile, are shrill. Right-wing “pro-Israel” activists decry any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, while left-wi…
Read More…icists like Whitestone and Lederman doing the talking) we seem to revert to talk of magic and wizardry. I suspect that this isn’t merely a matter of scientists talking down to a lay audience, but is a sign of the utility that these supernatural concepts still maintain (even for physicists) for some of those very features of our universe that science has supposedly laid bare….
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…. In some quarters the letter was treated as a reversal of position—even a sign of bad faith, or that the bishops had gotten to Sister Keehan and reeled her in. It would be fairer to take the letter at face value, as an acknowledgement that on close examination Obama’s suggested accommodation simply would not work—a reasonable conclusion given the self insurance issue and that it is still not clear whether the insurance companies would pick up the…
Read More…say what opinions we should have. In Maryland, I’ve only seen one call for signature gatherers that went out over one congregation’s email list. But even without formal LDS Church involvement in Maryland, you feel compelled to take a more political stance than the Salt Lake City marchers. Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail said, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people…
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…an opening prayer through a megaphone. Then, the LDS contingent took its assigned place at the head of the parade and began to march. Some Bridges marchers worried how the crowds would react, especially given the history of LDS Church-backed opposition to same-sex marriage. “But when we turned the first corner onto 200 South Street, the crowd just roared,” says Austin Hollinbaugh, a recent BYU graduate from Provo, Utah, who joined the Mormons Buil…
Read More…en and available can help everyone. The Washington initiative is still in signature-gathering phase. What will Washington Mormons for Marriage Equality do if it comes to the ballot? SH: We are organizing members on Facebook and will soon have our website up. We have already joined a Faith Action Network with Washington Catholics for Marriage Equality. Catholic archbishops allowed signatures to be collected in Catholic parishes—in the church itsel…
Read More…ir agreement with the university’s belief that “sexual relationships are designed by God to be expressed solely within a marriage between husband and wife.” The new statement goes into more detail, looking at God’s design for marriage, offering help for those struggling with issues of sexuality, and encouraging discussion on campus. “Our marriages on earth model the relationship between Christ and His bride, the church (Eph 5:31-33),” the statemen…
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