“Refugees are not the ones harming this country,” says Aden Batar, director of immigration and refugee resettlement for Catholic Community Services of Utah. “Ever since the refugee resettlement program started back in the ’70s, we have more than 3 million successfully resettled in the US, and those refugees are contributing members of our society.”
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December 2, 2016

“The idea of caring for those who are in need we consider to be a scriptural mandate,” says Steve Peterson, managing director of the Mormon Church’s welfare system. “And that’s grown into a wonderful program worldwide that focuses on caring for those in need, to relieve suffering, and to foster self-reliance and give opportunities for service both for those that receive things and for those that are helping out.” More →

June 24, 2016

Does the federal government control so much Western land that it even violates some religious beliefs? Says historian Will Bagley: “I’ve found distinct similarities between what sagebrush rebels believe and what frontier Mormons believe. Both parties believe states’ rights are second only to scripture. The government persecutes them because they’re righteous, and they’re the only true patriots. They love the Constitution, but they hate the government.” More →

May 13, 2016

“We want people to understand the history of this church,” says Elder Marcus Nash, a leader of the LDS church who worked on a series of essays about questions of faith and contested church issues. But while this generation of Mormons may be “craving a more complicated narrative” about the church’s past, as Mormon historian Paul Reeve has said, former Mormon Edward Hoefer thinks “some people will accept the essays…and be comforted,” while for others “it will just accelerate their process” of leaving the church behind. More →

June 26, 2015

The number of people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is going up steadily as a result of the lower age limits for both men and women who want to serve as missionaries. More →

May 30, 2014

The number of people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is going up steadily as a result of the lower age limits for both men and women who want to serve as missionaries. More →

December 13, 2013

Last year was the 75th anniversary of the annual Hill Cumorah Pageant near Palmyra, New York, a lavish outdoor theatrical production of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based on the Book of Mormon. More →

August 2, 2013

The primary goal of the annual Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York “is to reach out to people who might be curious about what makes Mormons tick…It’s really a non-threatening way to get some connection to this religion,” says Brent Hanson, artistic director of the pageant. More →

August 2, 2013

“If you’re training gay scouts to be, presumably, gay leaders, but then you don’t want gay leaders in the scouts, that’s an odd message to send,” says United Methodist pastor Charles Parker, a former scout. But opponents of the proposal to accept gay scouts say it flies in the face of a basic scouting tenet: the oath boys take to be “morally straight.” More →

May 17, 2013

The God gap was alive and well this year in American politics, according to one professor of political science. White evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons, and a growing number of religiously unaffiliated voters all played a part in Election 2012. More →

November 2, 2012