Author: Sharon Lindbloom
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Evangelicals Accused of Undermining Freedom of Religion
A couple of weeks ago the Vatican released a document which reaffirmed its belief that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church. In the mass of media coverage following the release of this document, one Canadian newspaper column caught my attention. Paul Albers is a freelance columnist in Ottawa who also happens to…
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Separate Entities, Several Gods
The Cincinnati Enquirer online recently published an article about various topics related to Mormonism. A sidebar to the article, titled “What they believe,” included this bullet point: ” There is no trinity. Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate entities.” It struck me as odd that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the…
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James 1:5 — An Appeal to Scripture
I was recently reading in The Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith — History regarding the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s First Vision. As Joseph told the story, he talked about his confusion over which church was correct in the things they taught. Or, he wondered, were they all wrong? Joseph said all the…
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Fourth of July in Far West, 1838
On the 4th of July, 1838 the Mormons, gathered in Far West, Missouri, held a celebration. The following is an excerpt from former BYU historian Stephen C. LeSueur’s book, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, pages 49-53. Real conflict between the Mormons and the Missourians began a short time later. Three months after Rigdon’s speech,…
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“Mormonism’s king was dead.”
On 27 June 1844 Mormonism’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith, was killed. Much has been written about the death of Joseph Smith, accounts written from every perspective imaginable. In 1994 historian D. Michael Quinn, a former BYU professor and former Mormon, published The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. In this book, Dr. Quinn carefully documented the…
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PostMormon.org Billboard Squelched
In April Mormon Coffee reported on a billboard campaign instituted in LDS areas by PostMormon.org, a group of former Mormons seeking to offer support to others who have left the LDS Church. Last Friday (22 June) the Idaho Falls’ Post Register reported on the “early termination” of the display of one of these billboards. Reproduced…
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Temple-Appropriateness
A friend from the Las Vegas area sent me a copy of a local publication, Desert Saints Magazine. According to the “Letter from the Editor” in the March 2007 issue, “This magazine is produced by three stay-at-home LDS mothers (with contributions from two talented husbands) who are trying to do a service for the LDS…
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Strategic Emotional Advertising
Bonneville Communications is an advertising agency owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s web site explains, “For over 30 years, Bonneville Communications has designed, produced and distributed public service messages for national nonprofit organizations. “Long after people forget what they hear, they remember how they feel. So Bonneville creates those unforgettable…
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Joseph Smith on Humility, Innocence and Truth
One hundred and sixty-three years ago tomorrow (June 7, 1844) the one and only issue of The Nauvoo Expositor was published in Nauvoo, Illinois. The newspaper was intended to be the voice of the Reformed Mormon Church, a dissident religious group led by former counselor in the LDS First Presidency, William Law.The members of the…
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The White Horse Prophecy Rides Again
“Romney candidacy has resurrected last days prophecy of Mormon saving the Constitution,” reads a headline today in The Salt Lake Tribune. The article, written by journalist Thomas Burr, discusses the so-called White Horse Prophecy which was purportedly received by Joseph Smith in 1843. The article states, It’s Mormon lore, a story passed along by some…
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Really — What is Mormonism? Most Evangelicals Would Be Surprised.
On May 31st Christianity Today online posted an article which addresses the issue of Mitt Romney and Mormonism, asking, “Can conservative Protestants vote for a member of what they consider a cult?” The article is co-written by Mormon professor Robert Millet and Christian author Gerald McDermott.Of particular interest in this article is where it addresses…
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Latter-day Saints Don’t Care for Sugar-coated Mormon History
Sunday’s Deseret News (27 May) published the results of an email survey conducted by the LDS Department of Family and Church History. “LDS in survey call for unvarnished history” reports that active Latter-day Saints “want their church to provide a “frank and honest” presentation of church history, unvarnished by attempts to sugar-coat the past in…
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Preach the Gospel? Don’t Bother.
The March 17th issue of Church News included an article about the LDS Church in Yonkers, New York. The article highlighted the work of a senior missionary couple that sparked “needed growth” of the Church in that area.According to the article, Yonkers, the fourth largest city in New York, is “just a few miles north…
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IOUs of Mormon History
On May 10th at Promontory Summit near Brigham City, Utah, visitors celebrated the 138th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike which completed the transcontinental railroad in 1869. The day before the commemoration Lee Benson of Deseret Morning News wrote an article he titled “138 years makes a big difference.” Commenting on the fact…
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Joseph Smith for President
There’s another movie about Mormonism in the works. A French magazine reports, A Mormon President, the first documentary film to explore the Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith’s campaign for the US Presidency and its implications for the candidacy of another Mormon, Mitt Romney, has begun production and is slated for a fall 2007 release. Filmmaker Adam…
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Anti-LDS Bias
On Saturday, 17 May, LDS Church-owned Deseret News ran a story titled, “Anti-LDS bias running high” in which was reported the findings of a two-year study done by the San Francisco think tank Institute for Jewish and Community Research.The survey, The Religious Identity and Behavior of College Faculty (pdf file of the complete report available…
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Mountain Meadows and the Honorable Thing
Two recent Associated Press articles discuss the Mountain Meadows Massacre and its legacy. One article focuses on the controversial John D. Lee statue, while the other examines the film September Dawn, which portrays the event and seeks to confront historical misconceptions about the massacre.
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The Mormons: People Are Talking
The PBS documentary “The Mormons” has now come and gone. Reactions to the four-hour show are, as would be expected, fairly mixed. Here’s a sampling of what people are saying. “There was too much of those who did not present what Mormonism is really all about, particularly by those who had left the faith and…
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Amazing Grace
Last Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune (27 April) contained “A call to grace” written by Tribune journalist Peggy Fletcher Stack. It’s the story of Jonathan Hays, a newly ordained Christian minister serving in New Song Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Salt Lake City.Rev. Hays is unique in that he’s the first pastor in Utah’s PCA Church that…
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Misunderstanding Mormonism
The bishop of the Howell [Michigan] ward of the LDS Church, Mark Briscoe, recently told a journalist that it’s painful to him when others think Mormonism isn’t a Christian religion. He identifies this notion as the “greatest misconception about the [Mormon] church.” On April 26th LivingstonDaily.com reported: “Sometimes people would say that we’re not Christians,”…