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4 July 2012
Why We’re Afraid of Mormons
July 5, 2012
BU Today (Massachusetts)
Hutchison-Jones, a Harvard administrator, is not Mormon, but an interest in religious intolerance led her to write her BU doctoral dissertation on “Reviling and Revering the Mormons: Defining American Values, 1890-2008.” (Those years marked the official Mormon abandonment of polygamy and Mitt Romney’s first run for president, respectively.) She began with the assumption that this would be another American story of a minority’s assimilation into, and acceptance by, the mainstream culture. To her surprise, she learned that Mormonism remains “really problematic for a lot of people. The negative images of Mormons far outlasted my expectations.”
BU Today spoke with Hutchison-Jones about what prejudice against Mormons says about us and the prospects for Romney’s second bid for the White House.
http://www.bu.edu/today/2012/afraid-of-mormons/
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Will “The Mormon Bachelor” Create More Marriages than ABC’s?
July 4, 2012
Patheos
Does religion play a role in the type of person you date? If you’re an evangelical Christian, would you date a Muslim? If you’re a Jew, would you date a Mormon? On ABC’s popular reality television show, “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” one person is presented with a couple dozen options of potential spouses. All of the contestants are attractive, physically fit, and in the same age range. But there’s one factor producers don’t seem to consider: faith.
The current Bachelorette, Emily Maynard, is an evangelical Christian, but one of her suitors, Jef Holm, attends a Mormon church. (He says he is not an “active Mormon,” but attends church services regularly.) Wouldn’t this be an issue for one – or both – of them? After all, marrying outside of one’s faith is a major reason for divorce. The American Religious Identification Survey of 2001, indicated that “people who had been in mixed-religion marriages were three times more likely to be divorced or separated than those who were in same-religion marriages.”
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Over a hundred Mormons gathered to quit the LDS church
July 5, 2012
Christian Today (Australian)
The group of Mormons, from Utah, Arizona, Idaho and a few other states, flashed signs saying, “Finally ExMormon,” “Research the church” and “Transcend Mormonism,” as they hiked Ensign Peak in Salt Lake City.
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Mid-Missouri Mormons celebrate religious freedom with walk, run
July 4, 2012
KBIA (Missouri)
Columbia’s Mormon congregations celebrated religious freedom this morning and marked an event from the church’s history.
The sounds of patriotism rang out across the Twin Lakes Recreation Area in in preparation for a walk and run in honor of Parley P. Pratt. He was a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints back in the 1830s, when the church faced persecution in Missouri. He and some other leaders had been imprisoned on false charges.
http://kbia.org/post/mid-missouri-mormons-celebrate-religious-freedom-walk-run
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The Mormonizing of America (BOOK EXCERPT, PT 7)
July 4, 2012
Christian Post
What Joseph’s parents lacked in land and money they made up for in spiritual experiences and religious opinions. Lucy had once nearly died of a fever and begged and pleaded that God might spare her so she could raise her children. As she wrote years later in her memoir, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, “I made a solemn covenant with God that if He would let me live I would endeavor to serve Him according to the best of my abilities. Shortly after this, I heard a voice say to me, ‘Seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Let your heart be comforted; ye believe in God, believe also in me.’” Lucy’s health was restored and she began doing as she was told: seeking. She met only with disappointment, though–in ministers, in church doctrines, in denominations–and concluded at last “there was not then upon the earth the religion which I sought.”
http://blogs.christianpost.com/bookstop/the-mormonizing-of-america-book-excerpt-pt-7-10678/
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Duke Basketball: 7 Ways Coach K Can Lure Jabari Parker to Duke
July 4, 2012
Bleacher Report
Being a Mormon, Jabari Parker has a duty to perform a mission to help spread the world of God for two years, and it would come after his freshman season.
If all were to go well with his career, that would conflict with him being an NBA player at age 19.
While I am not an expert in the Mormon faith, I do know that this mission is very important and may outweigh Parker’s desire to be an NBA player.
However, if Coach K were to offer a way for him to play his freshman season, then do his mission and return to college to prepare for the NBA, Parker would be tempted.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1242248-7-ways-coach-k-can-lure-jabari-parker-to-duke
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Salt Lake Acting Company: Saturday’s Voyeur 2012
July 4, 2012
Salt Lake City Weekly (Utah)
Newsweek declared a cultural “Mormon moment” in summer 2011, what with the Broadway phenomenon of The Book of Mormon musical and the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. But Allen Nevins and Nancy Borgenicht have been chronicling Utah’s perpetual “Mormon moment” for 30 years, and are turning the satirical eye of Saturday’s Voyeur on many subjects of local interest that now get national attention.
Of course, the musical revue will touch on plenty of hot-button issues from the past 12 months, from being a Mormon with such non-Mormon affiliations as homosexuality and the Democratic Party to the ongoing power of a certain high-profile busybody in the halls of the Legislature to the opening of City Creek Center. But it’s all filtered through the dreams of a rank-and-file Mormon that Obama can be replaced by Romney–assuming the rest of the country can stop wondering about how weird Mormons might be.
http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/event-123139-salt-lake-acting-com.html
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Snapshots From Four Key Swing States Reveal an Anxious Mood
July 4, 2012
Oregon Live
Mormons make up about 7 percent of Nevada’s population but vote in large numbers. Polls showed that about a quarter of the participants in Nevada’s February GOP caucuses were Mormons, and Romney won them handily. He also won the caucuses.
Drew Leavitt, a fourth-generation Las Vegas native, said his son will turn 18 before November and is excited to cast his first-ever vote for a fellow Mormon. “He stands for the same beliefs,” Leavitt said.
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Murals highlight Morinville heritage
July 4, 2012
St. Albert Gazette (Alberta)
Rob Murray has a great nickname for himself but his art doesn’t need such slick marketing techniques. The devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – also known as the Stormin’ Mormon – has been painting up a storm of murals in Morinville.
The St. Albert-based artist might have come up with his new moniker based on his painting style. He admits that he doesn’t like to stop a project once he starts, meaning his large-scale efforts become marathon sessions. Each one takes about a day.
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NBC Profiles Mia Love’s ‘Historic’ Run for Congress in Utah
July 4, 2012
NewsBusters
PROF. QUINN MONSON, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY: She is symbolically something of a stereotype buster. There’s a sense by some of these Mormon Republican voters that electing a black Republican woman would demonstrate that whatever people say about Mormons and their history with race, maybe it’s not so true.
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God goes missing in presidential campaigns
July 4, 2012
Marietta Daily Journal (Georgia)
First, Romney, the GOP’s presumptive nominee, is a Mormon. He is not a Protestant and certainly is not an evangelical Christian, a member of the GOP’s most reliable voting bloc. As such, he is wary of emphasizing his faith and values bona fides and bringing too much attention to tenets of Mormonism out of synch with Protestant beliefs.
Strategically, Berlinerblau writes, Mormons and evangelicals long have been fierce competitors in efforts to save and recruit souls worldwide. What advantage would Romney gain by reminding the nation’s army of evangelicals of this battle? By default, Obama has little if any reason to stress faith and values when Romney is not doing it.
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Beach Boys’ music sparks Stadium of Fire
July 4, 2012
Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
Another signal that this event was punctuated with music was that the emcee was Alex Boyé, a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with a solo career as well. Boyé, born in England and residing in Utah for the last decade, became an American citizen in February.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home3/54433480-200/stadium-fire-beach-music.html.csp
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