I was interested to note a spotlight on the Romney campaign in today’s Financial Times when I got in to work this morning and opened the paper on my desk. I noticed the article is also on FT’s website, although without the large picture of Josh and Tagg Romney with the Romney campaign bus. Read more »

There has been a lot of talk lately around the LDS blogs of “inoculating the Saints”. This protracted discussion was precipitated by a 2007 Sunstone Symposium presentation relating to inoculation (Blake Ostler, Kevin Barney, and Mike Ash) that was later distributed as a podcast by John Dehlin. Read more »

One statement in particular caught my eye in the recent English translation of an article in Der Spiegel, a major German news magazine, about the Church focusing mostly on Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Mitt Romney (ht: Jonathan Green at T&S.) Read more »

Mitt Romney’s name stands out prominently on the cover of the current issue of Foreign Affairs (July/August 2007). Many in the field of international relations and foreign policy view Foreign Affairs as the premier periodical publishing essays, articles, and reviews on the most critical issues arising in U.S. foreign policy. It is purportedly read by policy makers in Washington at the highest levels, and by governmental leaders from around the world. (Tony Blair, at the time still Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, published an essay titled “A Battle For Global Values” recently in the January/February 2007 issue.)

The current issue of Foreign Affairs is not running an article about Mitt Romney; rather, it is publishing a fifteen-page essay on foreign policy authored by Mitt Romney as part of a series in which “top candidates” for the White House will be expressing their visions for the future of U.S. foreign policy. The first installment contains an essay by Barack Obama and one by Mitt Romney. (Mitt Romney, “Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007, pp. 17-32.) Read more »

Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune (hat tip to the BCC newsfeed), the following opinion about the Church’s involvement in redeveloping downtown Salt Lake City expresses some points worth careful consideration: Read more »

Making immediate internet headlines, former Bloggernacle participant and seasoned blogger Ryan Bell is returning to the blogosphere with his newly minted Romney Experience blog. His focus with this foray into blogland is to support LDS Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s campaign. Read more »

Hollywood’s take on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, September Dawn, should have been out for public consumption by now. The release has reportedly been delayed until August. There is a possibility, however remote and unlikely, that the producers of the film have made the decision to postpone the release until August in collaboration with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a good-faith attempt to let objective historians — and the Church and its supporters — supply details that the film consciously ignores. Read more »

Today’s New York Times quotes John Dehlin to the effect that Mitt Romney is not steadfast, is shady (i.e. not “up front”), lacks integrity, and is inconsistent. It is unclear what these judgments are based on, but these were not the only notable comments relating to Romney and Mormonism in today’s newspaper article. The impetus behind such comments, especially in the context of the rest of the NYT article, seems to be that Romney is somehow misrepresenting the Mormon faith or Mormon doctrine. Read more »

Last night, the mission president of the England, London mission, President Folger, hosted a “Why I Believe” fireside featuring U.S. Senators Gordon Smith (R. Ore.) and Orin Hatch (R. Utah), as well as two recent converts and the President of the Europe West Area, Elder Kenneth Johnson of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

The Spirit was strong as the two Senators related their experiences and faith in the Gospel. The common thread running through both of their comments — although otherwise very different — was the power of the Book of Mormon in their own spiritual development and conviction that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was true (by which both of them meant that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Priesthood of God are found exclusively in the Church). Read more »

I have often heard the argument that although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy in 1890, it still clings to the doctrine because it retains the concept of “Families Can Be Together Forever” and the concept of sealing families in the temples. The twin notions of temple sealing and “Celestial Marriage” as contained in Doctrine & Covenants 132, it is said, establish that Latter-day Saints believe that polygamy will be practiced in heaven even if the Church has rescinded the practice on earth. Read more »

Who among the Latter-day Saints has not at one point realized that adherence to this faith severely cramps one’s style in numerous and significant ways?

And yet some people seem to feel themselves special for ultimately choosing their style over the religious commitments they have made. But I like to think that we would all wear a red hat if God told us to do so. . . .

Only a few days after following a link on T&S’s sidebar and reading the shocking Washington Times editorial about the German state’s fight against homeschooling and homeschoolers, including the home-schooled children themselves, I learned of another aspect of the German schools that puts members of religious minorities into a very difficult position. From A.R., a German in his mid-twenties, I learned that Latter-day Saint (”Mormon”) students in many schools in Germany face a horrible prospect of intolerance, persecution, and teasing from not only other students, but from teachers and school administrators themselves. (Of course, less is hardly to be expected when you have parliamentary commissions chartered to examine what harmful effects “cults” [Sekten] have on society.) Read more »

In May of this year, we will have the opportunity to see a Young Guns-type western called “September Dawn” focusing on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The Bloggernacle has looked at this topic before, last year at BT and yesterday at Mormon Wasp, among others (probably). Read more »

Many Seinfeld fans were appalled this week as former Kramer actor Michael Richards spewed nearly three minutes of racial epithets when two African Americans interrupted his stand-up routine at the Laugh Factory. Richards has called Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to apologize for the outburst. Jesse Jackson accepted his apology and advised him to get help. Curiously, however, Reverend Al Sharpton’s answer was “Sorry is not enough.” Read more »

The Church’s general counsel for international matters, Bill Atkin, recently gave a lunch presentation to the international subcommittee of the Utah State Bar. He spoke generally of his career in international law as a partner at Baker & McKenzie and also about some of the work he is called upon to do as counsel for the Church. Read more »

Most people, religious or not, are familiar with the popular formulation of the “Golden Rule”:

Treat others as you would like to be treated.

This age-old principle is a sure guide to behavior, right?

Read more »