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11 August 2012
Mormonism in the News: Getting It Right | August 10
August 10, 2012
Today’s edition of “Getting It Right” features articles about how Mormon missionaries learn to face adversity and serve others, as well as inaccurate reports about the Book of Mormon and polygamy.
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-in-the-news–getting-it-right—august-10
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Romney’s Mormon Story
August 11, 2012
New York Times
If Romney were a Presbyterian, Methodist or Jew, this would be an obvious part of his campaign narrative. Like George W. Bush’s midlife conversion or Barack Obama’s tale of “race and inheritance,” Romney’s years as a bishop would be woven into a biography that emphasized his piety and decency, introducing Americans to the Romney who shut down his business to hunt for a colleague’s missing daughter, the Romney who helped build a memorial park when a friend’s son died of cystic fibrosis, the Romney who lent money to renters to help them buy a house he owned, and so on down a list of generous gestures and good deeds.
The broader Mormon experience, meanwhile, could help make the case for his philosophy as well as illuminate his human core. The presumptive Republican nominee is not naturally ideological, but he’s running as a critic of Obama’s expansive liberalism, and as a standard-bearer for a conservative alternative.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/douthat-romneys-mormon-story.html
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In presidential race, the religious test that wasn’t
August 11, 2012
The Tampa Tribune (Florida)
Remember all the media chatter during the primaries about how the “Mormon factor” could undermine Mitt Romney’s candidacy?
Forget about it.
American voters, it turns out, are mostly unconcerned about Romney’s religious affiliation or have no idea what it is.
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Mormon-Catholic pairing makes for historically unique GOP ticket
August 11, 2012
Fox News
With the choice of devout Catholic Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, has arguably crafted the most religiously unique ticket in presidential history. Both religions have interesting precedent in presidential politics, however, with varying degrees of success.
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For a political first, a Mormon blessing
August 11, 2012
Bryan College Station Eagle (Texas)
Spiritual leaders will give invocations and benedictions each day at the Republican National Convention. Will Mitt Romney ask anyone from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to offer a blessing?
Romney, who will be the first Mormon nominated for president by a major party, never discusses his church while campaigning unless the circumstances require it. Instead, he talks about “my faith” or “shared values” with voters.
http://www.theeagle.com/article/20120811/BC0106/120819953/1103/bc20/&slId=7
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Truth in Mormonism
August 11, 2012
Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
I would argue that creedal truths are the least important elements of faith. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that what Mormons assert about Joseph Smith is true. What then? What then for Mormons? Surely, it is not the knowledge that Smith was a prophet that is important, but rather what that truth does in one’s life as a believer. The truth of religion, if it has any truth, must always be a truth of transformation, an existential rather than epistemological truth. The ultimate truth of Mormonism or Catholicism or Judaism is not what you believe but what you do.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/54658089-82/truth-mormons-faith-mormonism.html.csp
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Get Schooled At Mormon Rocks Trail (On Your Way to Vegas)
August 11, 2012
LAist (California)
The Cajon Pass has been a vital artery for travel from long before I-15, Route 66 or Las Vegas. Freight trains such as the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and passenger lines such as the Super Chief, the Southwest Limited and their modern descendant, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, have been making their way through this gap since the late 19th century. The Mormon travelers after whom the rocks are named made their way through the pass in the 1850s, around the time of California’s statehood.
http://laist.com/2012/08/11/mormon_rocks.php#photo-1
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Using genealogy, Mormons baptize spirits of dead
August 11, 2012
Erie Times-News (Pennsylvania)
In a small library behind the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in West Mobile, researchers are busy trying to save souls.
With traditional resources like death and census records, and online services such as ancestry.com, fold3.com, and paper-trail.org, the Family History Center offers windows into the past for spiritual reasons.
“We believe in baptism of the dead by proxy,” said Anita Curtis, former director of the center who now teaches seminary in the Mormon church in Mobile.
As explained on the faith’s website, http://www.mormon.org, the living stand in for the dead during baptism by immersion “because all who have lived on the earth have not had the opportunity to be baptized by proper authority during life.”
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120811/APN/1208110555
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What do Mormons believe?
August 9, 2012
Journal Star (Nebraska)
* In addition to the Bible’s Old and New Testaments, they believe in the Book of Mormon — said to be the writings of ancient prophets who lived in North America from about 2200 BC to AD 421. The writings include an account of Jesus Christ in North America after his crucifixion and resurrection.
* Mormons believe these writings were recorded on gold plates ultimately buried in a hillside in what eventually became upstate New York; that an angel in 1823 led then-teenager Joseph Smith to those plates; and that Smith later transcribed them before returning them to the angel. Smith is the founder of the Mormon Church; the Book of Mormon was first published in 1830.
http://journalstar.com/what-do-mormons-believe/article_08c487d6-f483-5544-8d75-79f2deb27730.html
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5 sisters get married same day in Mormon church
August 11, 2012
Standard Examiner (Utah)
It’s a mega wedding day for a Mesa, Ariz., family with five siblings walking down the aisle on the same day.
The East Valley Tribune reports the five Waldie children all got engaged within a few months of each other.
While trying to plan wedding dates with out-of-state family and guests, dad Doug Waldie suggested they all marry on the same day.
So five of the eight Waldie children got married Friday at a Mormon church in Mesa: 28-year-old Emily, 26-year-old Bradford, 25-year-old Sydney, 24-year-old Walker and 20-year-old Brooke.
http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/08/11/5-sisters-get-married-same-day-mormon-church
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Mormon Church Leader Arrested In Penis Biting Attack
August 11, 2012
The Inquisitr
Mormon Church leader Efrey Guzman was arrested on charges stemming from a penis biting attack in Utah. The Latter Day Saints (LDS) church leader is accused of severely biting another man’s penis after allegedly assaulting the victim’s mother and sister.
http://www.inquisitr.com/299316/mormon-church-leader-arrested-in-penis-biting-attack/
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Your Mail: Turning from God?
August 10, 2012
The Town Talk (Louisiana)
Mormon leaders will make prayers every day of the Republican National Convention. The one Christian God will be supplanted for the first time in the history of the convention.
It’s funny that Christians fight hammer and tong over birth-control pills, but they raise up on a pedestal one who believes Christianity as they practice it was abandoned by God in favor of Mormonism. Mitt Romney, according to Mormonism, may one day be a God.
In Christianity, these are called heresies. If a team of gods created Earth, then Genesis is either a lie of man or God, if God did indeed abandon historic Christians for modern Christians or Mormons.
http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20120811/OPINION03/208110301
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5 notable points about Paul Ryan’s selection as Romney’s running mate
August 11, 2012
Daily Caller
Years ago, Hugh Hewitt wrote a book about Romney called “A Mormon in the White House.” Today’s title might be “A Mormon (and a Catholic!) in the White House.” Historically speaking, this is a big deal.
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Godbeat gleanings, 8.11.2012
August 11, 2012
Courier Journal (Kentucky)
“The Book of Mormon,” which has garnered the Tony Award for best musical and controversy for its harsh satire of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is coming to Louisville in a traveling Broadway production in the 2013-14 season. No word yet on a date.
http://blogs.courier-journal.com/faith/2012/08/11/godbeat-gleanings-8-11-2012/
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‘Mad dog’ Harry Ried
August 10, 2012
The Leaf Chronicle (Tennessee)
Doesn’t Reid, a Mormon like Romney, subscribe to the prohibition in the Ninth Commandment: “Thou shall not bear false witness”? He appears to pay no political price because he’s a Democrat and unlike Joe McCarthy, to whom some are comparing him, no prominent fellow Democrat or top media figure has asked Reid the question put to the commie-hunting McCarthy by attorney Joseph Welch in 1953: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
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Don’t fall for Reid’s tasteless sideshow on Romney’s tax returns
August 10, 2012
News-Press (Florida)
Doesn’t Reid, a Mormon like Romney, subscribe to the prohibition in the Ninth Commandment: “Thou shall not bear false witness”? He appears to pay no political price because he’s a Democrat and unlike Joe McCarthy, to whom some are comparing him, no prominent fellow Democrat or top media figure has asked Reid the question put to the commie-hunting McCarthy by attorney Joseph Welch in 1953: “Have you no sense of decency?”
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