The Mormon Question

CNN's Religion blog has posted a story entitled "Explain it to me: Mormonism." The post is by Dan Gilgoff, CNN's Belief Blog Co-Editor.

The post lists 10 facts about Mormonism, including its official name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the persecution the Church endured in its early years, including the murder of its founder Joseph Smith.

Apparently this persecution continues to some degree even today.
As of this posting, some 12 hours after CNN posted its story, over 1,200 comments have been made to the story. One commenter, drjaz, noted:

The hate and vitrol towards the mormons is nothing short of amazing. I haven't seen anything else compare. You'd think the mormons were jews and this was the inquisition. . . . When Joseph Smith was just a poor young backwoods no name kid with no prospects for the future he said that the angel told him his name would be had for good and evil all across the world. That's one prophecy these mormon haters have ensured has been absolutely and undeniably fulfilled.

Beyond reading the original CNN posting, viewing the reader posts provides a glimpse into public attitudes toward Mormons.

To read the CNN post, click here.

Heaven is a "Fairy Story" says Stephen Hawking

CBS News reports that Physicist Stephen Hawking does not believe in an afterlife. According to their report, Hawking describes Heaven as a "fairy story" for people who are afraid of death.

To read the complete story, click here.

USCIRF Identifies World’s Worst Religious Freedom Violators

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released its annual report yesterday. For the first time, the report lists Egypt as a major violator of religious freedoms.

The report can be accessed at the link below.

USCIRF Report

Vietnam Arrests Pastor of Banned Mennonite Church

Officials in Vietnam have arrested a pastor of a banned Mennonite church on the charge of sowing dissent between the people and the government.

The story can be viewed at the following link:

Vietnam arrests pastor of banned Mennonite church

Political "Affairs"

After Nevada Senator John Ensign (R) admitted to having an affair with a staffer, Rasmussen Reports reported that 37% of Americans believe that most members of Congress have extramarital affairs.

Last week, after Governor Mark Sanford's (R-SC) admission of an extramarital affair, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that only 24% of Americans feel that most members of Congress DO NOT have affairs. Thirty-eight percent (38%) said that they were not sure.

When asked whether a politician who has an affair should resign or be forced out of office, the results were as follows:

• 47% of Republicans said yes
• 39% of Democrats said yes, and only
• 35% of unaffiliated's said yes.
  

To some degree this may illustrate how commonplace adultery has become in our society, or how little we expect of our elected officials.

For the Republicans, these recent stories have brought about yet another difficulty. The Republican party has for some time labeled itself as the party of traditional and family values. The Party has specifically made an issue of this as it has fought for traditional marriage and against same-sex marriage.

These revelations that significant Party players are, by traditional standards, immoral, place the Republican Party in a position to be mocked and accused of being hypocritical.

One recent example would be the political cartoon drawn by Daryl Cagle for MSNBC.com in which he depicts a casually dressed donkey wearing a t-shirt which reads "I'm with Holier-than-thou Hypocrite Christian Adulterer" on an arrow which points to an elephant in a business suite with his pants down.

It is not coincidental that the mocking of the Republican Party is accompanied in this case by mocking the Christian religion as well.

To read the Rasmussen Reports article, click here.
To see the Daryl Cagle political cartoon, click here, and proceed to cartoon #10.

Why Transsexual/Transgender Rights Matter

On June 11th, various news sources announced that Chastity Bono, the only daughter of Sonny and Cher, had begun sex change procedures earlier this year.

Although the transsexual/transgender segment of the population is very small, their fight for rights, and the attention they are receiving in the media, are a significant assault both on the traditional family, and on those religious authorities and denominations that proclaim that gender is divinely assigned.

Read about this issue in the TwoMinuteBriefing - Why Transsexual/Transgender Rights Matter.

To access the PDF file, click here.

The (Mormon) Church and Gay Marriage

Time Magazine has published an article online entitled "The Church and Gay Marriage: Are Mormons Misunderstood?" Although already available online, the article is dated Monday, June 22, 2009.

The article describes the involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the California Proposition 8 campaign in some detail, including the theological underpinnings for its opposition to same-sex marriage.

In commenting on this article, a posting on Examiner.com's Salt Lake City page agrees that religions should be allowed to "fight for what they view as right". However, the article immediately goes on to quote a talk by Mark E. Peterson given at BYU in 1954 in which he warns against the "Negro" desiring not only equal rights but "absorption with the white race" through intermarriage.

The Examiner article concludes by stating that just as the "morality", as defined by the Church in 1954, opposed civil rights, the Church's "morality" opposes civil rights today. "The arguments haven't changed, only the target of discrimination."

To access the Time Magazine article, click here.
To access the Examiner.com article, click here.

Connecticut Claims Diocese Acted As Lobbying Organization

In March of this year, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, rented buses so that people could attend a rally in Hartford. The rally was to protest a bill that would have granted parishioners more power with regards to church finances.

The church, via its web site, also urged its members to contact lawmakers about this bill. The bill was eventually withdrawn.

At the same time, the Diocese urged its members to contact lawmakers regarding a same-sex marriage bill. That bill passed, and was signed into law in April.

According to Connecticut law, if an individual or organization spends more than $2,000 a year lobbying, it must register as a lobbyist.

Bishop William Lori of the Bridgeport Diocese is quoted as saying:

It seems to me that by requiring a diocese or any other entity to register with the state before it can protest an unfriendly action by the state has a chilling affect. I don't think it's in anyone's interest that a protest rally be labeled lobbying.

To read the Fox News story on this issue, click here.

Catholic Priest now Episcopalian Minister

Father Alberto Cutié, who was removed from his Catholic parish in early May after photos surfaced of him sharing physical affection with a woman on a Florida beach, has left the Catholic Church and preached his first sermon before an Episcopalian congregation today, Sunday May 31st.

An exceptionally well known Miami Beach based Catholic Priest, Father Cutié was known as Father Oprah, because of his media popularity.

When the photos first came to light, Father Cutié appeared before a variety of news programs, appearing at times contrite and apologetic for his behavior. In at least one program, he defended the Catholic Church's requirements of celibacy for priests.

Now, he has decided to leave the Catholic Church, but not his profession as a minister.

Although it is certianly not unusual for individuals to change denominations as a result of doctrinal disagreements, for an individual as visible (as now) Rev. Cutié to do so, particularly after he was caught violating a tenet he had vowed to keep is indeed troubling for the following reasons:

1. It sends the message that the individual is pre-eminent, not the doctrine or the rules of the church or organization to which one belongs,
2. It diminishes the concepts of integrity and commitment. Certainly it might be said that we must be true to ourselves, but when that concept is used as a justification to ignore or violate commitments that we have made to others, to a community, or in this case to a church, then we are effectively saying that we are not governed by any rules other than the ones we choose to obey at a particular time.

To read the ABC News story, click here.
To read the Fox News story, click here.

Christian High School Student Threatened with Suspension for Attending a non-Christian Prom

An ABC news report which relates the story of four teens who were denied permission to attend proms, tells of a young man attending a Christian High School who was informed that if attended prom at the non-Christian high school of his girlfriend, he would be suspended and not allowed to graduate with his class.

According to the article, his school does not permit "dancing, listening to rock music and holding hands and kissing".

A comment to the article read, "I am so glad I dropped the entire Christian religion thing. Intolerance and threats may not be the foundation to that religion, but it is certainly what is practiced in its organized sense."

Although the intent of the article appears to be to relate how school officials are at times heavy handed in denying students access to proms, in the current atmosphere of the battle over gay rights, the story of the young man attend the Christian high school may also be seen as demonstrating another case of Christians intolerance.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=7542835&page=1