https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to mormons en https://religiondispatches.org/2022/11/21/three-cheers-mormon-support-same-sex-legislation-not-so-fast Last week, the LDS Church formally came out in support of the federal Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), a legislative initiative that would repeal the notorious Bill Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and compel all American states to honor… Mon, 21 Nov 2022 01:27:33 EST Chrissy Stroop 3d36242a-419b-49d8-b44a-286106c411b6 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/08/25/however-dull-or-ham-fisted-tv-not-oppressing-mormons-fact-we-have-duty-scrutinize Jana Reiss, a senior columnist for Religion News Service, recently surveyed a number of recent television programs that “ present Mormonism in an unflattering light .” The column’s headline claims “Mormons are being oppressed and mocked on TV. We’re not… Thu, 25 Aug 2022 03:22:04 EDT Megan Goodwin 06dcc035-318d-45df-a62c-3f178d052a6d https://religiondispatches.org/2022/04/28/what-most-critics-missed-about-dustin-lance-blacks-under-banner-heaven At the Salt Lake City premiere of Under the Banner of Heaven , writer, director, and producer, Dustin Lance Black explained that the series sought to tell a broader story of Mormonism, including Mormon experiences foreign to most viewers. By… Thu, 28 Apr 2022 03:00:47 EDT Cristina Rosetti 116dac6f-6fbc-4b75-8aff-bfa0a122a264 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/04/25/fxs-under-banner-heaven-adaptation-rejects-reductive-elements-krakauers-book-confirms I was a twenty-year-old missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Washington DC in 2003. My companion and I, temporarily serving in a rural community about an hour southeast of the nation’s capital, had been teaching… Mon, 25 Apr 2022 02:33:34 EDT Benjamin E. Park 14146002-5e82-435d-ad3e-8ba03a48fa3a https://religiondispatches.org/2022/04/13/always-pray-father-mormon-leader-calls-desire-knowledge-heavenly-mother-arrogant-and In 1995, in a document called the Family Proclamation , leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made explicit what had long been an oft-discussed but little documented element of Latter-day Saint belief: “All human beings—male and… Wed, 13 Apr 2022 03:25:54 EDT Holly Welker ab83467b-961a-4dfa-890b-bbda73d5c197 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/12/15/mormon-group-digging-scriptural-city-zarahemla-iowa-portrait-religious-nationalism News outlets like Iowa Starting Line and The Salt Lake Tribune have recently reported on a group called The Heartland Research Group (HRG) which has taken to the cornfields of Montrose, Iowa in search of Zarahemla, a city frequently mentioned… Wed, 15 Dec 2021 04:18:00 EST Hanna Seariac ddcd92f9-0f86-478d-8b32-9e411a78107e https://religiondispatches.org/2021/10/11/quiet-passing-fundamentalist-mormon-prophet-lynn-thompson-suggests-polygamy-recognition Lynn A. Thompson, President of the Priesthood of the Apostolic United Brethren, the largest Mormon fundamentalist religion, quietly passed away this week on October 5, 2021. ‘Mormon fundamentalist religion’ is a term used by both early leaders of the movement… Mon, 11 Oct 2021 01:19:45 EDT Cristina Rosetti 272bc300-9e8b-42e7-8c66-47d17ca9ca8b https://religiondispatches.org/2021/09/28/just-10-years-book-mormon-musical-has-gone-americas-darling-americas-latest-problem This year marks the tenth anniversary of The Book of Mormon the musical on Broadway. If this show were an actual Mormon, a tenth is what would be given away as a tithe to God. Thanks to the pandemic, that’s… Tue, 28 Sep 2021 04:56:41 EDT Jake Johnson 67bb1cb7-c876-4bc8-bf85-a88d5bd8c73a https://religiondispatches.org/2021/09/13/new-mormon-religion-has-taken-qanon-conspiracies-and-canonized-them-doctrine Over the last year, I’ve scrolled past social media posts by members of diverse religious backgrounds and political opinions. However, because my ethnographic research is based in Mormon fundamentalist communities, a good amount of the commentary I see leans libertarian… Mon, 13 Sep 2021 04:13:59 EDT Cristina Rosetti bdddc8c8-b212-49cb-a666-7dea675238c1 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/03/05/murder-among-mormons-episode-3-recap-what-genuine Spoiler: this recap covers the investigative developments found throughout the three episodes of Murder Among the Mormons , a new documentary released this week by Netflix. A recap of the first episode can be read here , the second here… Fri, 05 Mar 2021 08:55:28 EST Benjamin E. Park 9b51a053-f6c9-4bea-b568-a9d9b146000b https://religiondispatches.org/2021/03/04/murder-among-mormons-ep-2-recap-family-man-wild-side Spoiler: this recap covers some of the crucial investigative developments featured in the second episode of Murder Among the Mormons , a new documentary released this week by Netflix. A recap of the first episode can be read here, while… Thu, 04 Mar 2021 10:34:36 EST Benjamin E. Park 891b0abb-1c91-4035-8c57-a7853e001e24 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/03/03/murder-among-mormons-ep-1-recap-trio-bombs-launches-slc-panic Below is a recap of the first episode of Murder Among the Mormons , a new documentary released today by Netflix. Reviews of the next two episodes will appear on Thursday and Friday. An overview essay on the topic appeared… Wed, 03 Mar 2021 10:41:27 EST Benjamin E. Park 8ca6dcea-44c6-4caa-bd5d-cb28b5985c51 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/03/01/murder-among-mormons-latest-true-crime-doc-netflix-highlights-issues-faith-skepticism Note on spoilers, etc: This essay covers the broad outlines of the Mark Hofmann forgery and murder case, which will be highlighted in the new Netflix documentary, though it does not detail any of the documentary’s new discoveries. Recaps for… Mon, 01 Mar 2021 01:07:52 EST Benjamin E. Park 6005c82f-3fcd-4e68-bb9c-86416214576a https://religiondispatches.org/2020/05/14/how-1843-revelation-polygamy-poses-serious-challenge-modern-mormonism This week, new legislation goes into effect in Utah that decriminalizes polygamy among consenting adults . The development, which was voted on in February , was a long-time coming. But while many decriminalization bills have been proposed over the years—Utah’s… Thu, 14 May 2020 01:04:46 EDT Benjamin E. Park b823898d-58d0-4fe8-a1cc-9cb1758e0e9c https://religiondispatches.org/2020/03/24/some-mormons-see-message-angel-moronis-fallen-trumpet Some Mormons See a Message in the Angel Moroni’s Fallen Trumpet On March 18, 2020, at 7:09 in the morning, residents of Salt Lake City and the surrounding counties of northern Utah awoke to a 5.7 magnitude earthquake that struck… Tue, 24 Mar 2020 08:08:51 EDT Christopher James Blythe b64b7af0-3af0-4cbb-b128-3ff458d4b0c7 https://religiondispatches.org/2020/02/10/did-romney-cynically-cite-his-mormon-faith-impeachment-vote-critics-claim So it turns out that at least some Republican leaders only care about faith when it moves the needle in their direction. Mitt Romney claimed that his Mormon faith had a lot to do with his vote to convict Pres… Mon, 10 Feb 2020 10:59:09 EST Daniel Schultz b53e9ced-e44a-4de3-b636-e6e63c4f1041 https://religiondispatches.org/2020/01/15/mormon-statement-feminism-relevant-and-timely-only-coincidence “What is the Church’s stance on feminism?” This is the question addressed in a brief anonymous statement (four paragraphs, thirteen sentences, 224 words) published in January’s issue of the New Era, a magazine for youth published by The Church of… Wed, 15 Jan 2020 04:37:59 EST Holly Welker 7dc9046a-faf6-4150-867e-7004023d74ef https://religiondispatches.org/2019/01/04/changes-role-mormon-women-cant-be-discussed-lets-discuss-them-anyway It’s gaslighting, moral cowardice, and yet another betrayal to deny women’s anger and pain, only to go and make some of the changes women have sought while still explicitly denying that women ever had any sort of legitimate complaint. Fri, 04 Jan 2019 02:23:27 EST Holly Welker 2bae4888-0a24-4863-bb49-f83d6fbdb495 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/09/28/kavanaugh-hearings-are-commentary-mormonism I strongly suspect that what Senator Orrin Hatch found so objectionable about the Kavanaugh hearing was that women were allowed to ask questions of a man. Fri, 28 Sep 2018 12:27:33 EDT Holly Welker 4587dded-7dd1-4b48-92aa-861afc262719 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/09/14/mormon-humorist-robert-kirby-butt-his-own-dirty-joke The problem, he writes, is that he “misjudged how she would take [his] sense of humor.” Really? Does he normally get a good response to asking women he’s just met to pretend they’re prostitutes? Fri, 14 Sep 2018 11:55:17 EDT Holly Welker 184048a5-7c7b-4947-9bf8-04364b405aa0 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/08/20/lds-church-disavows-mormon-ism I doubt that Latter-day Saints are any more likely in 2018 to renounce a practice ingrained over lifetimes than they were in 1982. Mon, 20 Aug 2018 04:00:38 EDT Holly Welker 8a3484eb-aeaf-4237-b42b-1833ecb2ced1 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/01/23/jeff-flakes-mormon-influenced-anti-trump-speeches-prophetic-or-performance Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies. - Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R), Jan. 17, 2018 Last week, Sen. Jeff… Tue, 23 Jan 2018 04:05:51 EST Grant Shreve 59be2aa2-ca18-4a0c-937d-3cceacddb616 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/01/17/meet-new-straight-white-american-male-mormon-president On Tuesday, Russell M. Nelson, a 93-year-old retired heart surgeon, was announced as the seventeenth prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Peggy Fletcher-Stack notes ( via Mark Silk), “the Church leadership is still white, male… Wed, 17 Jan 2018 02:43:47 EST Holly Welker e67e97a7-dbd5-4917-b179-12a516d0c18e https://religiondispatches.org/2017/10/08/mormon-leader-affirms-doctrine-marriage-and-more-global-lgbt-recap Global Religious Right: ADF Expands Again Alliance Defending Freedom, the US-based religious right legal group, has expanded its global culture-war reach with the opening of an office in London. In an email to supporters, ADF’s international affiliate wrote, “Lord Alton… Sun, 08 Oct 2017 02:39:01 EDT Peter Montgomery ebea32f4-db68-47bf-aec7-591fd3f62bfb https://religiondispatches.org/2017/09/06/why-we-stay-what-history-mormonism-reveals-about-origins-race Author Max Perry Mueller answers RD’s 10 Questions Wed, 06 Sep 2017 05:09:28 EDT Max Mueller 7982ec22-7f89-4c7d-9b35-74c2427cc816