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Glen Larson, creator and producer of the first show, is a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints. He based much of the first series on Mormon cosmology. Was there a concerted effort to move away from that in this version? Not specifically, no. I looked at the original series as mythos and the way it dealt with religion as sort of a global sense. I was aware that Glen had used Mormon influences and how he had created the cosmology, but I'm not that familiar with Mormon belief or practice. To me there were things that were sort of...

The Church...of Latter-day Saints affirms...there was a falling away...The long night of apostasy lasted well over a millennium. During this period, man-made creeds and practices were substituted for the plan of salvation that Jesus...taught. SNIP C. A universal apostasy occurred... “For over seventeen hundred years on the eastern hemisphere, and for more than fourteen centuries on the western, there appears to have been silence between the heavens and the earth. Of direct revelation from God to man during this long interval, we have no authentic record...The passing of the apostles was followed by...a universal apostasy...“...an absolute apostasy of the Church...”...

Last week it became clear that LDS Church member Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for president. This is a momentous event for millions of Mormons who may have doubted it could ever happen. However, the general election campaign will be negative and nasty. We explore the continuing ramifications of Romney's religion in the presidential race.In hindsight, was religion as big a factor in the recent primary contests as it was in 2008?Pignanelli:"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." — Mahatma GandhiReligion was an element in the recent primary elections,...

Glenn Beck has been in Texas only a few months, and he's already talking big. Now, he wants to address America from his own Oval Office.Lest anyone fear that something has suddenly gone drastically wrong in our country, Beck's Oval Office is a movie set in Irving.-SNIP-Saying he will "deliver the speeches the president should have delivered," Beck promised to "activate the sleeping giant" of Christian conservatives in America with speeches from his new set on the Studios' Stage A. Mainly, of course, Beck's goal is to motivate subscribers to pay $9.95 a month for his show, broadcast daily to...

Pornography taints everything it touches. Mitt Romney should have understood that. So should the Marriott Corp. and other hotel owners who offer hard-core movies in hotel rooms. Romney caught a bit of flack...because he spent nearly 10 years on the Marriott board and yet never tried to reverse the company's policy of providing pornography on demand, something J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr., defended in a 2000 letter as being economically important... For a presidential candidate who has railed against pornography, this is not entirely insignificant. Even if the subject never came up at a board meeting, one can argue that at...

Until very recently, when I discovered I had a heart problem, I was employed as a cop. I loved the job because it gave me the unique opportunity to combine my love of helping people, with my joy of firearms and driving fast while not having to worry about traffic tickets. Admittedly, I was never what you would call a super-cop, but I showed up to work, did my job, and for better or worse had a major impact on some peoples lives, most of whom I can't remember, even though they took the time to painfully describe what they...

Long before our God began his creations, he dwelt on a mortal world like ours, one of the creations that his Father had created for him and his brethren. He, with many of his brethren, was obedient to the principles of the eternal gospel. One among these, it is presumed, was a savior for them, and through him they obtained a resurrection and an exaltation on an eternal, celestial world. 8 Then they gained the power and godhood of their Father and were made heirs of all that he had, continuing his works and creating worlds of their own for...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_5hww4HNDQ And so begins the MSM turn on the Republican nominee. And as much as I hate to credit the MSM, and particularly O'Donnell, I cannot find anything in his rant that is inaccurate, other than the number of wives Joseph Smith claimed. O'Donnell says 48, but I believe the most consistent number put forward by historians is 27. On the other hand, Brigham Young claimed 56 wives, so O'Donnell is certainly within range.

...anti-Mormon stories coming out now that it looks like Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama in November. Mormons vs. Democratic morons. Brigham Young vs. Tax 'em Young (aka Tax 'em Old, Tax 'em All). Mormons baptize the dead. Democrats have the dead vote. It's going to be a fun election season.

Each spring millions of Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of their Lord. In light of the fact that this is one of the most important events within the Christian tradition, it is important for us to examine and understand the spiritual significance of Christ's sacrifice in light of the teachings of past LDS leaders. Philippians 2:7 tells us that Christ made Himself of no reputation and took "the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Hebrews 2:17 tells us this was done in order that He might make "reconciliation for the sins of the...

WASHINGTON - The head of the Democratic Party scolded Sen. Orrin Hatch for alleging that President Barack Obama would use Mitt Romney's Mormonism against him in the White House race."That is just preposterous," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, told MSNBC on Wednesday. "That suggestion is utter nonsense."Hatch, during a campaign stop in northern Utah, raised the prospect that Obama's re-election campaign would play the religion card to harm Romney's chances of toppling the incumbent Democrat."You watch, they're going to throw the Mormon church at him like you can't believe," Politico quoted Hatch as saying at...

Mormons and race. The Mormon Church excluded African-Americans from leadership until 1978, so it’s no surprise that the number of black Mormons is very small. What may be more of a surprise is that the number is growing. African-Americans now make up about 3 percent of the 5.5 million Mormons in the United States. Blacks make up about 11 percent of the U.S. population, so they’re still dramatically underrepresented. And while the Mormon Church is making special efforts to reach out to African-Americans, it’s hard to explain away—short of a full renunciation, which doesn’t seem likely—passages from the Book of...

FARMINGTON, Utah -- Sen. Orrin Hatch predicted President Obama's campaign team would use Mitt Romney's Mormon faith against him in the general election. Speaking to a group of GOP delegates at a campaign stop Tuesday, the six-term Republican incumbent warned, "You watch, they're going to throw the Mormon church at him like you can't believe." Asked to elaborate in an interview later, Hatch fingered campaign adviser David Axelrod and White House aide David Plouffe as the masterminds who would insert the issue into the campaign. "Let me tell you something. The Obama people have some of the best political consultants...

GREEN BAY, Wis. - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney faced a tough question about his Mormon faith while campaigning for Tuesday's Wisconsin primary. A Ron Paul supporter asked Romney whether he agreed with a passage from the Book of Mormon that describes a cursing of people with a "skin of blackness." Romney's staff took the microphone away from the 28-year-old Green Bay man before he could read the passage.

...notes from...Utah Valley University’s Mormonism and the Internet conference. ...Joanna Brooks, “The Challenge of Mormon Studies for the Digital Age”...Charge of modern Mormon duplicity: behind...public image of friendly clean-cut family types...are dark secrets and a sinister agenda. Brooks cites Daymon Smith’s ideas on Mormon discursive practices: trustworthy (official LDS) versus untrustworthy (other) sources; insider versus outsider narratives; guarded public speech to avoid open discussion of private LDS knowledge. Do Mormons have a divided sense of self? Do LDS scholars write to different (insider and outsider) audiences? Traditional theocratic control of LDS history and sources contrasted with...open source world of modern...

...if Mitt Romney becomes the...nominee...Critics of Mormonism could well attack the LDS Church's racially-exclusionary past, while its defenders could charge prejudice against the...contemporary LDS Church. The current controversy was sparked when the Washington Post published statements attributed to Randy Bott, a professor at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, repeating..."folk doctrine"...once offered to explain the ban... In a nutshell, the folk doctrine alleged that blacks were "cursed" by choices made in a pre-mortal confrontation, known among Mormons as the "war in heaven."... The Washington Post article provoked a strong reaction in Mormon circles...The president of Genesis, a support group for black...

OREM -- Online exploration of formerly taboo subjects is changing how Mormons talk about their faith, both officially and socially. What this means to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members was the subject of a UVU conference which launched on Thursday. Joanna Brooks, an award-winning religious scholar and writer, gave the keynote address of the "Mormonism and the Internet" gathering on Thursday morning. "One of our big challenges right now is that young people do have a lot of access to information about our history that is not discussed at home and at church," Brooks...

Yesterday, Religion Dispatches contributor Max Mueller published a piece at Slate detailing posthumous marriage rites performed in LDS temples that have wed Mormon and non-Mormon slaveholders to their former slave concubines—including Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. The article sheds light on another form of posthumous religious rites performed in LDS temples. In addition to posthumous baptisms, LDS Church members routinely perform proxy temple marriages or “sealings” for their ancestors and other deceased couples. Church doctrine teaches that marriages performed within LDS temples “seal” husband and wife together not only for mortality but for eternity. Mormonism uniquely emphasizes eternal marriage as...

Thomas Jefferson’s most famous slave, and the mother of several of the third American president’s children, died in 1835...We don’t know when news of Joseph Smith’s... religious movement reached...where Sally Hemings spent most of her 62 years, as a house servant and eventually as Jefferson’s “paramour.” But even if Mormon missionaries had come to Monticello during Heming’s lifetime, they would, per the instructions of Smith himself, have worked first to convert the masters, and only then—with the masters’ permission—the slaves. Heming’s chance to become a Mormon came much later, in a Mormon temple in Mesa, Ariz., 13 years after the...

John Dehlin first started the Open Stories Foundation as a means of giving Mormons with questions of faith a neutral resource for questions. Now, after having polled more than 3,000 doubting members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Dehlin will release his survey results at a conference at Utah Valley University on Thursday. “I went through my own struggles with my testimony 11 or 12 years ago when I was seminary teacher,” Dehlin says. “It was really painful and hard for me...” Since that time, Dehlin has started a podcast, Mormon Stories, that runs in conjunction with...