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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…

What’s Wrong with the Controversial Businessweek “Mormon Money” Cover?

By Joanna Brooks

…foundational moment in Mormon history. As Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune describes: It features an illustration of John the Baptist with his hands on the heads of LDS founder Joseph Smith and his assistant, Oliver Cowdery, and a quote bubble which reads: “And thou shalt build a shopping mall, own stock in Burger King and open a Polynesian theme park in Hawaii that shall be largely exempt from the frustrations of tax…” The profoundly…

LDS Church, US Government Swap Positions on Polygamy

By Holly Welker

…the assassination of Joseph Smith in 1844, from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City, Utah, to secure that and other freedoms—only to exchange them for Utah’s statehood 50 years later. The process by which the LDS Church went from affirming polygamy as one of its most important principles to renouncing the practice and excommunicating any Mormon who engages in it is told succinctly and compellingly in The Politics of American Religious Identity: T…

Ex-Mormons Shouldn’t Proselytize Mormons… Really?

By Holly Welker

…alian TV. Armed with a copy of The Origin of Species, Safran flies to Salt Lake City to promote atheism. I love when Safran offers one woman “a reading from 1980s concept band XTC,” quoting the lyrics to “Dear God,” just as I shake my head when an old man attempts to silence Safran by announcing that he’s “a bishop in the LDS church,” as if that’s an obvious reason why no one should attempt to share their beliefs with him, or when another simply s…

Greek Abbot Arrested for Role in Financial Scandal

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…These business-savvy monks had traded some relatively worthless land by a lake in north-central Greece; land that had been ceded to them by a Byzantine emperor centuries before for extensive real estate holdings in Athens, costing the Greek government (and the taxpayers) an estimated $130 million or more. It was unclear how the thing had been arranged, but the scandal led to the defeat of the ruling conservative coalition of the New Democracy in…

How Mormon is Mitt Romney? Over 50 Jokes For Trump

By Joanna Brooks

…k another shot at the former GOP presidential candidate at a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah on Friday, asking the crowd, “Are you sure he’s a Mormon? Are we sure?” Responding to Trump rhetoric may be like feeding a Gremlin after midnight, but we at RD were lucky to have the following in the archives from the 2012 election season. — eds Earlier this week, Florida evangelical Christian leader John Stemberger endorsed Rick Perry’s campaign for GOP p…

Reclaiming Friday the 13th: Less Jason, More Justice

By Jess Peacock

…occurred on a Friday) or the phenomenon of triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), the happenstance of the thirteenth day of the month falling on a Friday will be forever associated with Jason Voorhees, an icon of cinematic horror first spotted leaping out of Crystal Lake at the conclusion of the 1980 low-budget horror film Friday the 13th. After thirty-five years and twelve movies (including a journey into space, a battle with fellow ’80s ico…

Mexican Marriage Marches Show Struggle Between Church and Secular State; Pro-LGBT Mormon Group Grows After ‘Apostate’ Declaration; Botswana Gives Anti-Gay US Pastor the Boot; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…march drew tens of thousands – or hundreds of thousands depending on whose numbers you believe – of anti-marriage-equality Catholics and evangelicals to Mexico City, the culmination of weeks of protest organized by the National Front for the Family. Days before, the Supreme Court ruled that adoption by same-sex couples should be considered, like other adoptions, according to the best interest of the child. In preparation for Saturday’s anti-marria…

When Religious Freedom Means Freedom for Religious Violence

By Frederick Clarkson

…nother for the Idaho panhandle—border regions intended to draw the maximum number of attendees. Election, medical, and vaccine conspiracists, along with insurrection veterans like Flynn, Eric Trump, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell, and Roger Stone grab most of the media attention. But a disturbing religious dimension has received far less attention; that is, until November, when Flynn blurted out their broad intention at a San Antonio rally, “If we ar…

FX’s ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ Adaptation Rejects Reductive Elements of Krakauer’s Book, But Confirms That ‘Mormonism Breeds Dangerous Men’

By Benjamin E. Park

…aith’s reputation. The culmination of this new congenial approach was Salt Lake City’s hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics, which received international acclaim. The Church finally appeared to be gaining mainstream acceptance. The honeymoon period wouldn’t last. Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven appeared the very next year, immediately becoming a bestseller. The book tells the story of the grisly murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter…