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<p>Salt Lake City --The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has long been concerned that it be understood as a distinctively Christian institution, will step up efforts to discourage use of the term Mormon Church and instead emphasize the name Jesus Christ in references to the church, a leading Mormon official said in an interview on Thursday.</p>

1. Can you find me archeological and historical proof from non-Mormon sources that prove that the peoples and places named in the Book of Mormon are true? 2. Why does the Book of Mormon state that Jesus was born in Jerusalem (Alma 7:10) when history and the Bible state that he was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1)? 3. I’ve read where Joseph Smith said that he translated the golden plates (from which he got the Book of Mormon) letter-by-letter, “by the power of God” and that it was “the most correct of any book on earth." If that’s true why...

... The Mormons regard themselves as Christians, and Jesus figures prominently on the covers of LDS publications. They believe that after the death of Christ's apostles his church became confused, a period that ended only with the restoration of the Gospel by the presentation of another book of scripture by an angel to LDS founder Joseph Smith. Most Christian theologians, however, disagree, not just because they disbelieve the angel story and the Book of Mormon that resulted, but by pointing to Mormon concepts including the ability of humans to become godlike entities after death. Most perturbed have been conservative Evangelicals...

The Rise of Mormonism If anyone doubts that the Mormonism is a growing concern, just consider these facts. The Mormon church has grown from 2 million members in 1963 to 9.7 million members today with "stakes" (as they call their congregations) in 160 different countries. In the United States alone there are approximately 5 million people who claim to be Mormons!As we express our deep concerns about the anti-Christian nature of Mormonism, it is important that we recognize that many Mormons are fine people, with high moral values and deep devotion to their family. The sincerity of the Mormon people...

Mormons want you to believe that they are "Christians" and that their church, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", is just another Christian denomination. Mormons themselves believe that they are Christians and that their church is the only true church. Joseph Smith receiving his vision There is even a move among Mormons to shorten the name of their church to simply "The Church of Jesus Christ."Their founder, Joseph Smith claimed to have been told in a vision regarding the Christian churches that God "forbade me to join with any of them" and "all their creeds were an...

Angels, those winged creatures atop Christmas trees and a perennial subject for movies, long have captured the human imagination. But for most religious people, angels are far from imaginary. They are not merely cultural conceptions, symbols or myths. Indeed, angels play a vital role in the relationship between humans and the divine, according to teachings of the world's dominant religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe in angels and share a common notion -- that angels do God's work, including communication with humans. The very word "angel" is from the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for messenger, "mal'ach." Many...

SALT LAKE CITY - Over the course of two weeks, Utah Republicans had the chance to see the two most talked-about potential presidential candidates in their party. Mitt Romney attended an event for ADX security systems and Sarah Palin visited to sign her bestselling book. The Utahpolicy.com, Fox 13 Insider Poll finds that Mitt Romney is taken far more seriously as a potential presidential candidate. 53.5 percent of Republicans say they expect Romney to be the Republican party candidate to face Barack Obama. 31.3 percent of Democrats think Romney will be the candidate. Only 4.7 percent of Republicans and 6.3...

For me, this is an embarrassing question to answer, because I used to be racist. I was born and raised Mormon in Cottonwood, Arizona, USA. I served a mission and was sealed to my wife in the Mesa Arizona temple. I have seen the good that Mormons do in helping the poor and needy but racism is still alive and well within the LDS church. Seven years ago my wife and I decided to leave Mormonism when we began to study the doctrines that Joseph Smith originally proclaimed. I wish I could say that I left the Mormon church because...

NAMPA - Becki Detro said she was married to the church for 28 years of her life. Constant feelings of unworthiness caused her to leave her faith. "It was very hard," she said. "It's a hard thing when your whole family..." she couldn't continue and was visibly emotional. She's now joining an effort to help other followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who want to leave the church, but still have a place to worship. "I see a concern that LDS people are leaving because they are not receiving the healing balm of His forgiveness,"...

The glib answer to this is to suggest that she'd do the party a great service by not running at all. Yesterday I wrote that she's a "wrecker not a uniter" and that she could hijack the primary season to disastrous effect. That's clearly one possibility. But there are others, including some which might actually help the GOP and not merely by demonstrating the limits of Palinism and, consequently, lancing that particular boil. Though I think he under-estimates Palin's fund-raising potential, Daniel Larison runs through some of the [reasons?] that make it most unlikely that Palin can actually win the...

I’ll just leave this here… Before a defense of any kind of religious discrimination, one ought to make all of the necessary disclaimers: of course I oppose government-sponsored discrimination, and I certainly would not support the kind of absurd treatment described by Steven Reinhart in his piece featured below. That being said, there is a legitimate case to be made for judging any candidate for office by his religious convictions. In late 2007, Mitt Romney made his somewhat-famous speech on religion, where he spoke the following words: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of...

Video: 'Mormon Muffin' mom heats debate

Last week we talked about the frontier treasure-digging environment in which Joseph Smith lived and how his own pre-prophet world view was shaped by that environment. As we've discussed in past articles, Joseph -- like any other prophet -- was a fallible human with preconceived ideas, opinions, and assumptions, who was divinely called to an important role. Worldviews don't change immediately or all at once. God reveals his word, line upon line, and those who listen can enlarge their understanding of truth a little here and there as they are willing to grasp new concepts. In approximately 1819, Joseph borrowed...

Yesterday on Daily RFT we had a couple bones to pick with a misleading headline in the local daily and the bible-thumping defenders of Burrell E. Mohler Sr. Along with his brother and four sons, the 74-year-old Independence, Missouri, native is accused of repeatedly raping his elementary school-aged granddaughters. Turns out the article in the Post was cribbed from a much longer and much more compelling piece that led Sunday's Kansas City Star. The latter feature lays out the Mohler family tree, details all of the disgusting deeds in question and sets it all against the backdrop of the family's...

More than 150 leaders across a spectrum of conservative Christianity on Friday released a 4,700-word document vowing civil disobedience if they are forced to take part in "anti-life acts" or bless gay marriages. Called the "Manhattan Declaration," the six-page, single-spaced document was drafted by Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, an evangelical, and Princeton University professor Robert P. George, a Roman Catholic, and included a bevy of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox bishops, archbishops and cardinals as signatories along with dozens of clergy and laity. Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl is one of the signatories. "Throughout the centuries, Christianity has taught...

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image.... While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including...

The following message (though not this picture) was posted yesterday on the Mormon Church's public affairs blog. It explains the group's unhappiness with recent news reports that refer to "splinter groups" which hive off from the Salt Lake City-based "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (AKA "the Mormon Church") as "Mormons." These splinter groups (AKA "Mormon Fundamentalists") assiduously devote themselves to the practice of the doctrine of polygamy (which was renounced by THE Mormon Church in 1890) and around whichever Viagra-addled alpha male has set himself up as the prophet, seer, and revelator for that particular harem.

I'm a huge Beck fan, in fact I'm listening right now here http://www.ksfa860.com/common/gap_streamer.php but something really confuses me. It takes the ability to use real critical thinking to know what Beck (and most of us know about the state of the country and where we are heading). That is, we have the ability to discover the truth no matter how much the media or conventional wisdom try to hide it. Yet on Mormonism, Beck is cleary wrong. Any Christian knows that the book or momonism is severely flawed and that Joseph Smith was no prophet. How can Beck cut through...

Any Islamists who may have watched a Glenn Beck interview with Chuck Norris, must have taken delight from Beck pointing the soles of his shoes at Norris:As they also took delight from Obama doing the same to PM Netanyahu:The incident occurrs at about 4:33 minutes into the video. Caution Mr. Beck, Norris sleeps with a night-light. Not because he's afraid of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris. As well as jihadists!As an article at Weasel Zippers points out, among Islamists there is no greater insult than pointing the soles of one's shoes at someone. Obama certainly knew this....

You might think that the Mormon people celebrate Christmas like a good Christian denomination would. But a doctrinal issue broods over the Mormon people, a historic issue that prevents many Mormons from appreciating the Christian meaning of Christmas. Indeed, it is an issue that prevents Mormons from having a saving relationship with the real Jesus Christ. Just who is that Jesus in the manger? How was he conceived? And what kind of salvation does he freely offer to those who want eternal life and the forgiveness of sins?One of the fundamental tenets of Christianity is that Christ was born of...

As members of the church we recognize that the Book of Mormon was written for us and for our day and age. No earthly Nephite, other than Mormon, and perhaps Moroni, ever read the Book of Mormon in its entirety. It was edited by the Prophet Mormon under the direction of the Savior with the intention of articulating doctrine, events and experiences that relate to our times and circumstances. We live in a time of endemic warfare, and as Joseph Smith prophesied on Christmas Day 1832, from that time forth, "war shall be poured out upon all nations" until the...

Dear Seeker of Truth, I am a former Mormon missionary and apologist (defender of the faith). I wrote a book defending the Church against anti-Mormon attacks ("The Gainsayers" 1989). I spent many years of my life in research, hoping to find evidence for The Book of Mormon, and to counter anti-Mormon claims. I studied Book of Mormon archaeology and also Mormon history far more intensively than 99% of other Mormons. I did this because I wanted to defend the Church. Ultimately, I discovered the truth. I resigned from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1996. Below is...

Dear Seeker of Truth, I am a former Mormon missionary and apologist (defender of the faith). I wrote a book defending the Church against anti-Mormon attacks ("The Gainsayers" 1989). I spent many years of my life in research, hoping to find evidence for The Book of Mormon, and to counter anti-Mormon claims. I studied Book of Mormon archaeology and also Mormon history far more intensively than 99% of other Mormons. I did this because I wanted to defend the Church. Ultimately, I discovered the truth. I resigned from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1996. For those...

The Book of Mormon has undergone thousands of changes through the years as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has corrected typos, grammatical errors and mistaken words. Brigham Young University professor Royal Skousen highlights some of the most significant changes in his latest book, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text. Several examples are listed below: 1 Nephi 13:24"It contained the fullness of the gospel of the Land." (original manuscript)"It contained the fullness of the gospel of the Lord." (printer's version, 1981 edition)"It contained the fullness of the gospel of the Lamb." (BYU Critical Text Project)1 Nephi 17:48"Whoso...

Joseph Smith was just one of a proliferation of preachers and prophets who found God along the stony ridges and narrow lakes of western New York in the first half of nineteenth century. It was a place and a time of intense interest in religion: pathways to paradise ran in all directions. Prospective pilgrims had a choice, and many a wanderer journeyed a little way down first one path and then another testing alternate routes to heaven. The story of the strange systems and unusual faiths that resulted is essentially a record of unsuccessful experiments with religion. Some survived for...

One of the attractive components to Mormon theology was the notion that Mormons were a chosen people, and both figuratively and literally part of the House of Israel.  The Book of Mormon also offered the idea that Israel was all over the earth throughout time in various times and places and that they are always the chosen people.  Mormon youth (and adults) who receive a Patriarchal Blessing are personally informed of their own lineage as a member of the House of Israel.  So, how does this compare to other religions’ views of Israel and Judaism?Christian sects have a Jewish problem. ...

On his own dime, Mark Paredes is headed to Europe to try and explain Jews and Judaism to Mormons and to reassure Jewish people that they have a friend in Mormonism. Paredes, who currently is the president of the Los Angeles office of the Zionist Organization of America and a high councilor in the Santa Monica California LDS Stake, plans to speak in Holland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia and Austria starting on Aug. 29. Earlier this year, he did a similar tour in Norway and Sweden. Paredes believes he is being spiritually urged to visit Europe and speak in support...

The LDS Church’s Public Affairs Department has joined the lively, often contentious world of Mormon blogging. The blog — at LDS Newsroom — will include “commentary, additional context, localized stories and background to help the news media and the public better understand news and issues related to the church,” Lyman Kirkland, the department’s manager of social media, wrote on the site. The information, managed and written by the church’s public-affairs staff, will be “reliable and accurate,” Kirkland wrote, but “should not necessarily be viewed as official statements from the [LDS] Church.” In addition, the blog’s tone will “more conversational” than...

BEAVER, Utah (AP) -- Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs is being force-fed in jail for the second time in less than a week after again refusing to eat, Arizona officials said Tuesday. Mohave County sheriff's spokeswoman Trish Carter said force feeding of Jeffs started Friday...

The LDS prophets are "inspired men called to speak for the Lord" and the current prophet is "the only person on the earth who receives revelation to guide the entire Church," according to the LDS Church website. This does not mean that everything the prophet says comes straight from God, however.  Some LDS members believe the prophet largely operates with autonomy and that he is mostly expressing his own, sometimes incorrect, opinions.  So while what the prophet says may be useful or uplifting, "we don't need a lot of continuing revelation."In 2007, the church released a public statement that says...

Q: Do Mormons believe in the Trinity? A: Yes, Mormons believe in the reality and divinity of the trinity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost; however, Mormons believe that the trinity is composed of three separate and distinct beings with individual bodies. As seen in Matthew 3:16-17 the Son “was baptized” and “went straightway out of the water…and he saw the Spirit…descending like a dove…And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Thus the three divine beings that constitute the trinity are separate beings, yet one in purpose.

On June 27, 1844, Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Ill.

MRMOVES - I was reading one of the questions in the faq where one person asks.... JOHN - "Asks whether President Hinckley contradicts Joseph Smith's concept about God once being a man" At one point you answer... President Hinckley could not say that we believe God was once a man like us, because it has never been identified as official Church doctrine... I was reading the book, " Preparing for a celestial marriage" where it bluntly talks about that God was once a man and that he was once like us, and I know that is a approved Church Manual....

Official Mormon Statements about the Bible: The Mormon church teaches that the Bible has been corrupted and does not contain the fullness of the gospel. This is reflected in one of their Articles of Faith which states: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly" (Pearl of Great Price). Joseph Smith stated: "it was apparent that many important points touching the salvation of men, had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.10); "I believe the Bible as it read when...

... In this one chapter, we learn a lot. Moses speaks with God “face to face” in terms that indicate strongly that God indeed has a face. We learn of God’s Only Begotten Son. As the Father speaks with Moses and teaches him of Jesus Christ, we are reminded in clear scriptural terms that the Father and the Son are separate divine beings. We also learn something of ourselves, that we—left to our own resources—are “nothing,” yet we are sons and daughters of God created in the image of his Only Begotten, endowed with enormous potential. We learn about God’s...

c. 2009 Salt Lake Tribune PROVO, Utah -- Tyson Boardman sits before the computer screen at the LDS Missionary Training Center, discussing Mormonism with Jason and Travis in two Internet conversations at the same time. Why do people say Mormons aren't Christian? What does it mean to be baptized for the dead? How do Mormons view Jesus? Why do you have a prophet? Answering these and many other Mormon-related queries is Boardman's full-time assignment as a two-year missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he loves it. "I've had questions from Canada, England and every part...

With the revelation that President Barack Obama's mama may now be a Mormon, the LDS practice of baptism for the dead is once again in the news. Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995, was baptized by proxy recently in an LDS temple. Mormons believe Dunham would need this ordinance when she got to the other side. Obama hasn't commented on the matter. According to my double secret source inside the White House, he might have said, "If I didn't care what Mormons thought when I was running for president, why would I care now?" Mormons tend to see baptism...

Reporting from Las Vegas -- A male model wearing a kilt of black vinyl strips, a red belt with a gold buckle and little else is flexing his muscles amid fake oil derricks and Roman columns in a photo studio. All chiseled pectorals and tanned thighs, he is playing Captain Moroni, a battlefield hero in the Book of Mormon who rallied troops with the Title of Liberty banner. ... Hardy was emboldened. The 2009 calendar cover resembles a painting of the second coming of Christ. The shirtless model wears a rose-colored sash and white loincloth and is outlined in...

Elder Tyson Boardman sits before the computer screen at the LDS Missionary Training Center, discussing Mormonism with Jason and Travis in two Internet conversations at the same time. Why do people say Mormons aren't Christian? What does it mean to be baptized for the dead? How do Mormons view Jesus? Why do you have a prophet? Answering these and many other LDS-related queries is Boardman's full-time assignment as a two-year missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he loves it. "I've had questions from Canada, England and every part of the U.S.," Boardman says. "It's...

It was suggested that being anti-Mormon is the new politically correct anti-semitism given what happened to Romney in Dixie.  There are some problems with that concept especially down in Dixie.  The first that comes to mind is when did anyone ever accuse Dixie of being poltically correct.  But on a more serious note,  any Mormon who had lived awhile in either the South or the Midwest could not have been very surprised that Romney took a shellacing in the Midwest and the South. The fact that religious prejudice reared it's ugly head and took a bite out of the only...

Today, many people generally view Mormons as a people with strong family values and clean living, according to one pastor at McLean Bible Church. Some also believe they are just one of many Christian denominations. But that view is the result of a multibillion dollar campaign over the last couple of decades by Mormons who have attempted to present themselves in such a way, according to Todd Phillips, teaching pastor at Frontline, the young adult ministry of McLean in Virginia. Many Americans, including Christians, see Mormons as "just another branch of Christianity who talk about Jesus all the time and...

Associated Press - March 6, 2009 5:45 PM ET SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is revamping its business arm, the Deseret Management Corp., a holding company for commercial enterprises ranging from restaurants at Temple Square to real estate across the country. Executives say Deseret Management Corp. will become an active operating company that takes more control of its seven subsidiaries. Deseret Management's new president and CEO, Mark H. Willes, will become chairman of the board of each subsidiary, with their CEOs reporting directly to him rather than their own boards.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a Utah city can refuse to put a religious group's monument in a public park near a similar Ten Commandments display. The justices unanimously sided with the city of Pleasant Grove, which had said a ruling for the religious group would mean public parks across the country would have to allow privately donated monuments that express different views from those already on display. The Summun religious group, founded in Salt Lake City in 1975, sought in 2003 to erect a monument to the tenets of its faith, called the...

In my Father's house are many mansions. if it were not so, I would have told you. I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:2-3 KJV My Father's house are many mansions." He didn't say "My father's house will have many mansions." So then "mansions" were in His Father's house as he spoke. In Genesis, while Jacob went on a journey from Beersheeba toward Haran, he had a dream. After...

"It is a 'Mormon' truism that is current among us and we all accept it, that as man is God once was and as God is man may become." — Elder Melvin J. Ballard General Conference, April 1921 "From President Snow's understanding of the teachings of the Prophet on this doctrinal point, he coined the familiar couplet: 'As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.' This teaching is peculiar to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ." Marion Romney (1st Presidency) General Conference, October 1964 "The Lorenzo Snow couplet expresses a true statement: 'As man is, God...

This question was put to me the other day over lunch by a close friend who I had not seen for a number of years. I hasten to add that he is not about to tell his wife this. They are both still Mormon. However, we had a great conversation about all kinds of things, and this question came up. I could tell he was moved by what we talked about in that regard, and so decided to record the essence of our conversation. Here are the guts of the essay for those who like short as opposed to long...

If the past is a window to the present, then a new book about polygamy among early Mormons could be a portal to understanding where some contemporary Utah polygamists have found inspiration for their way of life. From child brides and secret ceremonies to their defiance of marriage laws, the narrative in George D. Smith's "Nauvoo Polygamy" illustrates the development and breadth of polygamy as it was first practiced in the 1840s by the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in Nauvoo, Ill. "It changes our understanding of a plurality of wives," polygamy historian Martha...

<p>Speaking at its annual conference held in Detroit in July 2007, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called on the American public and the entertainment industry to stop using the “N-Word.” Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick added, “Today we’re not just burying the N-word, we’re taking it out of our spirit.” I applaud this effort, and with it I offer my own challenge to Mormons everywhere to bury their own infamous “N-word,” that being the word “anti-Mormon.”</p>

In Joseph Smith's day some of the most prominent Americans were disgusted with the creeds of Christendom. Thomas Jefferson said: I [Jefferson] am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the preachers . . of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said or did. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man of which Jesus, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. . . . It is the speculations of crazy theologians...

A grand jury in West Texas handed down eight more indictments Wednesday in the criminal investigation into abuse allegations involving members of a polygamist sect. Jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs and three other members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were charged with eight different felonies, including aggravated sexual assault, bigamy and tampering with physical evidence, according to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. FLDS members have been under investigation since April, when Texas Child Protective Services removed more than 400 children from the group's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, south of San Angelo. The...