April 4, 2019

April 4, 2019 By

This morning the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced policy changes that effectively reverse the policy from November 2015. For those who don’t remember, that month the Church quietly updated it’s policy handbook in response to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States to prevent the children of LGBT+ parents from being baptized, and categorized same-sex marriage as apostasy. But the changes were leaked and quickly became a major news story. Dueling Revelation Soon after the... Read more

March 27, 2019

March 27, 2019 By

We live in a pluralistic society that, while it has a long way to go, has reached a general consensus that we need to treat one another with tolerance at the bare minimum. But when Latter-day Saints call for tolerance, we are often met with a simple “no.” What is strange is that this refusal of tolerance often comes from those societal quarters that not only values tolerance but places it on a pedestal as the guiding principle of their... Read more

March 18, 2019

March 18, 2019 By

I, unfortunately, wrote about New Zealand just days prior to the horrific attack. For those who read that article after the attacks, my article surely sounds tone deaf. In it, I spoke about the irresponsible way that New Zealand’s prime minister had spoken about my faith. But these issues are very minor in comparison to the hatreds that stoked the shooter. There is no place for the kind of hatred on display there. There are those who have confused my... Read more

March 13, 2019

March 13, 2019 By

Earlier this morning, Wednesday, March 13, 2019, a chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints burned down in Greymouth, New Zealand. The authorities are treating it as suspicious. It is the second chapel of the Church to burn down in New Zealand’s sparsely populated South Island this week, after a fire in a chapel in the city of Christchurch on Monday. These follow the well-publicized burning of a Latter-day Saint chapel in St. George, Utah in January... Read more

March 11, 2019

March 11, 2019 By

My oldest son is four years old so we are in the process of finding him a school to attend in the fall. I feel very lucky to live in a city with so many excellent elementary school options. We’ve considered everything from the Hebrew Learning Academy, which has the best outcomes in the city plus an hour of Hebrew every day. To the school of science and technology where every student competes in Lego robot making contests. This weekend,... Read more

February 15, 2019

February 15, 2019 By

Those who’ve read my about page, or have been reading this blog for long, know that because of my positive experiences with the Church of Jesus Christ, my first response when people try to criticize the Church is to rush to its defense. This is what happened last week when a few stray bloggers tried to twist devastating news about a sexual assault coming to light into a church conspiracy cover-up. And while I stand by what I wrote, I... Read more

February 8, 2019

February 8, 2019 By

The Supreme Court weighed in on a recent religious of freedom matter that received little national attention. But the results should be a concern for religious freedom advocates. Alabama had scheduled the execution of Domineque Ray. The state often allows the presence of Christian ministers. Ray requested a Muslim imam but was denied. In a surprise 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled against Domineque Ray and concluded that the execution could move forward without an imam present. Because of the nature of... Read more

February 6, 2019

February 6, 2019 By

Perhaps you’ve heard this week that a former Church employee confessed to molesting a boy twenty-six years ago. You very well might have heard wrong. Outlets, like Patheos’ own “Friendly Atheist,” are omitting key facts from the story to try and create a sex abuse scandal where none exists. In fact, the story helps illustrate why the “sex abuse scandal” that anti-Mormons like the Truth & Transparency foundation keep expecting to find doesn’t exist. But let’s start with what this... Read more

January 28, 2019

January 28, 2019 By

I expect you are as leary about starting the 2020 presidential campaign as I am. The first votes won’t be cast for 371 days and the last for 645. I promise to avoid being overtly political in the (very long) meantime. That said, the ability to live our faith freely is a major topic here, and politics does affect that. In fact, one unexpected candidate is already making religious freedom one of the major themes of her campaign. Democrat U.S. Rep... Read more

January 17, 2019

January 17, 2019 By

This past weekend a document formatted to appear like The Family: A Proclamation to the World was distributed in chapels of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in and around Herriman, Utah. The document is titled “Male and Female” and claims that the Church’s teachings on gender equality are incorrect. It addresses recent changes that make temple language more egalitarian and appears to largely be a response to that. It has clearly been formatted in such a way to evoke... Read more

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