Religion Dispatches
This is a world in which all the dials are turned up to 11—there’s more risk, more conflict, more drama. It’s a world where a few men have over 100 children apiece. One guy has over 250. Drab or dismal it’s not.
Read MoreA small FLDS community in British Columbia puts its way of life on trial.
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Religion watchers across the country followed the story, just over a week ago, of the frantic search in California for a “prayer group” that authorities feared intended to commit suicide. Was the “cult” label responsible for the hyperbolic coverage?
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Shocking revelation—polygamists are as boring as the rest of us!
Read MoreSelf-styled “prophet” still faces other charges.
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A new documentary delves into the Mormon involvement in the passage of California’s Proposition 8, but it misses a chance to see the big picture. It wasn’t just run-of-the-mill theological homophobia that galvanized the LDS church, but a fear that the spectre of Mormon polygamy would arise if LGBT people were allowed to marry. And what do some polygamists think? Gay marriage or plural marriage: it’s a question of civil rights.
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Many first learned of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints when the polygamous group came into the media spotlight following leader Warren Jeffs’ arrest (and eventual conviction) as an accomplice to rape. Pictures of young women in “prairie dresses” were splashed on TV and the media rushed to try to explain who these people actually were. Were they Mormons? Were they a cult? Sons of Perdition, a documentary that premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, follows the story of a group of teenage boys who have left the FLDS church, and tracks their struggles in exile from their homes and families.
Read MoreBut still freaking out about polygamy. . . after all these years. Discuss.
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Israel’s Ultra Orthodox, or Haredim, do not share the theological assumptions of the settlers—but in recent years a purely pragmatic alliance has formed. What does this mean for Israel as a society?
Read MorePew studies the importance of religion in China, Methodists and Lutherans swing both ways, and what media coverage of the fundamentalist Mormons has omitted…
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