theocracy

“I think today’s anxiety about Mormonism can’t be compared to that of the past. The anti-Mormonism that was nearly universal during Smoot’s era is now a tradition maintained by a very small slice of the American population. The Republican primaries gave that small slice a megaphone: the artificial loudness of their voice makes people overestimate their number.”

What’s the real story on 21st-century Mormonism? Visit the new Church-owned City Creek Mall on LDS General Conference weekend.

And a note for journalists covering the LDS Church.

Don’t think fringe movement, think multinational corporation.

What ought we do about millennial thinking in our day? If the combined 1300 pages of these two books have taught me anything, it’s that we can’t make it just go away. There is something fascinating, and perverse, in the human psyche that seems to yearn for this world to be other than how it is, even if that means destroying it.

Even Republicans can’t stomach her Islamophobic conspiracy theories.

Last night on MSNBC I discussed this with Martin Bashir.

Some people think that evangelicals only do charity out of a selfish desire to convert non-believers. Others insist that evangelical faith-based organizations are secretly installing a Christian theocracy. Both assumptions are misguided in my view because they are too narrow. Moral Ambition seeks to broaden (and refine) our sense of what everyday evangelicals believe they are doing, or would like to be doing, when they engage the public sphere.

The majority of abortion clinics in Kansas, given less than 2 weeks to comply with new toilet and closet size regulations, would have shut their doors but for a federal judge’s 11th-hour temporary decision to block the regulations. Was it really safety or a backdoor attempt to end abortion in the state?

The documentary serves as a good illustration of the gradual and subtle influence of R. J. Rushdoony’s work in the broader culture—often in places where his name is completely unknown.