Mormon Church

HBO on Tuesday defended its plans to depict a sacred Mormon temple ceremony in an episode of "Big Love." The drama about a Utah polygamous family will show an endowment ceremony Sunday. HBO said it did not intend to be disrespectful of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and apologized. The ceremony is an important part of the "Big Love" story line, HBO said. In the scene, actress Jeanne Tripplehorn's character, Barb, goes through the endowment ceremony as she faces losing her membership in the Mormon church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a message for the Boy Scouts of America's plan to allow gay Scouts: We're fine with it. The Mormon Church, which has historically opposed same-sex marriage, said Thursday that it supported the Scouts' recently proposed rules change that "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," as the proposal puts it. ...

An investigation into whether three Mormon missionaries defaced a Catholic shrine on a butte overlooking San Luis has been dropped after Roman Catholic Bishop Arthur Tafoya urged forgiveness. Costilla County sheriff's investigator Cpl. Scott Powell said that the investigation had just gotten underway. Mormon Church officials earlier issued an apology. "I ask that we as Catholics, who believe in the forgiveness of Christ, will ourselves forgive and pray for the young men who showed such a lack of tolerance and understanding," Tafoya said.

The newer, smaller and more centrally organized a religion is, the less prone it is to reformed versions breaking away. It also helps if the religion's followers form an insular group, to one extent or another, away from the tug of societal trends. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has typically had a very strong form of this identity. It's a highly centralized organization, with a clear set of rituals and behaviors that are expected, with clear outcomes for those who follow suit -- and those who don't.

Joel Grey clones they are not. But musical cabaret artists Curtis York and Robert Daniels, the two young iconoclasts known as Les Mormons, do share a certain flamboyance with the Kit Kat Club's androgynous emcee. Mixing song, dance and theater in a variety act rife with black humor, Les Mormons call attention to the contradictions facing gays today. Like Grey's host in Weimar Germany, Les Mormons have fun in the midst of an urgent situation, employing show-biz strategies to mitigate against prejudice.

In June, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a fateful decision. They called on California Mormons to donate their time and money to the campaign for Proposition 8, which would overturn a state Supreme Court ruling that permitted gay marriage. That push helped the initiative win narrow passage on election day. And it has made the Mormon Church, which for years has striven to be seen as part of the American mainstream, a political target.

Mitt Romney is the first major-party nominee for president who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - the Mormons. Here is a brief primer about Mormon history and beliefs: Who are the Mormons? The LDS Church claims some 14 million members, more than half outside the United States. Most American Mormons live in the West, with more than a third concentrated in Utah. American Mormons are overwhelmingly white (88%) and Republican-leaning (74%), according to the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

During the 2012 presidential election, Republican candidate Mitt Romney's openness about his Mormon faith brought to the surface many of the generalizations Americans maintain about what it means to be a Mormon. Ryan McIlvain's debut novel " Elders " might serve as a fascinating and lively fictional corrective  - a portrait of what it can mean to be a Mormon missionary - complete with all the doubts, hesitations and temptations that come with the territory. McIlvain, who was born in Salt Lake City and left the Mormon Church in his mid-20s, tells the story of Elder McLeod and Elder Passos, two young missionaries in Brazil, each struggling with specific aspects of their faith.

From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago. "We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and that we were special people," said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. "It not only made me feel special, but it gave me a sense of transcendental identity, an identity with God."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a message for the Boy Scouts of America's plan to allow gay Scouts: We're fine with it. The Mormon Church, which has historically opposed same-sex marriage, said Thursday that it supported the Scouts' recently proposed rules change that "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," as the proposal puts it. ...

For the first time in memory, a woman has led a prayer at the major conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Jean A. Stevens offered the closing prayer for more than 100,000 Mormons gathered Saturday for the church's general conference. Millions of others watched via satellite. “Women have been praying in church and speaking at conferences for years,” church spokesman Eric Hawkins told the Los Angeles Times. “But this is the first time in memory that we have had a sister lead a prayer.” A feminist group launched the Let Women Pray campaign in January asking for the right to offer opening and closing prayers at the conference, which has been held for 183 years.

During the 2012 presidential election, Republican candidate Mitt Romney's openness about his Mormon faith brought to the surface many of the generalizations Americans maintain about what it means to be a Mormon. Ryan McIlvain's debut novel " Elders " might serve as a fascinating and lively fictional corrective  - a portrait of what it can mean to be a Mormon missionary - complete with all the doubts, hesitations and temptations that come with the territory. McIlvain, who was born in Salt Lake City and left the Mormon Church in his mid-20s, tells the story of Elder McLeod and Elder Passos, two young missionaries in Brazil, each struggling with specific aspects of their faith.

A Delaware man on Wednesday sued the Boy Scouts and the Mormon Church, charging that he was sexually abused by a scoutmaster, the latest suit to be filed in connection with the scandal that has rocked the youth movement. Melvin Novak, 28, announced his suit, filed in Philadelphia, at a news conference. In his complaint, Novak alleges that pedophiles were involved in scouting for decades, as demonstrated when the Boy Scouts of America in October released confidential documents -- known as the “perversion files” -- that  list 1,200 alleged abusers who were weeded out of the organization between 1959 and 1985.

PROVO, Utah - Sitting cross-legged on a lawn with two other students, Whitney Call, a 23-year-old creative writing major at Brigham Young University, took satisfaction in at least one aspect of the outcome of the 2012 presidential election: Mitt Romney might not have won, but he demonstrated that being a Mormon, like her, was no barrier to winning the nation's highest office. "His faith was not a factor in the election at all. Maybe that means that people are beginning to realize that Mormons are more mainstream than they thought," she said.

This post has been corrected. See note below. Mormons in Africa apparently have elbowed aside witches in Oz to achieve what the Pantages Theatre claims is the highest one-week box office gross in L.A. theater history. "The Book of Mormon" raked in $2,246,093 for the week ending Oct. 21, the Pantages announced Tuesday, but a theater spokesman declined to say what the previous record had been, citing a policy against spilling such beans. A web search turned up an announcement by the producers of "Wicked" that it had taken in a Pantages record of $1,949,068 during the final week of 2008 to wrap up its nearly two-year run at the 2,703-seat Hollywood theater.

Re "His conservatism may be article of faith for Romney," Sept. 21 Neither the government nor the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will pay a needy church member's mortgage, but both offer food assistance. When a church does it, it's a helping hand; when we all do it (with our tax revenue), it's a handout. According to this view, a family of four with a monthly income of $1,200 (and not paying income tax) is self-reliant and taking personal responsibility if it accepts help from the Mormon Church, but it believes itself a victim if it accepts government help.

Though well written, your article made it appear as though leaders of the church prefer to have believers accept, without question, what we're told. On the contrary, the doctrines and leaders of the church have always encouraged members to pray and ponder and gain a testimony of the Gospel, whether contained in the Scriptures or received as modern-day revelation. Part of that testimony entails faith in our leader. The doctrines of the church will not change to cater to people who cannot accept God's teachings.

When the Mormons first came to the Russian capital about five years ago, city authorities gave the preachers from Utah what seemed an appropriate place to hold their prayer meetings: rooms in a ramshackle former Russian Orthodox monastery, closed decades before by the Soviet government. But as the strictures of communism fell away in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, Russians were again permitted freedom of worship and, in 1993, President Boris N.

When the bottom fell out of the real estate market, Jason and Liz Anderson reached out to the institution they trusted most: the Mormon Church. Meeting with their bishop in Rancho Cucamonga, they laid out the problem: Although Jason was working two jobs, he was barely earning enough to make ends meet. The bishop "was really open and loving," Liz recalled. But it was tough love. "We're not going to pay bills. We can't pay your mortgage," she recalled him as saying. He offered food assistance and a blessing.

Mitt Romney is the first major-party nominee for president who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - the Mormons. Here is a brief primer about Mormon history and beliefs: Who are the Mormons? The LDS Church claims some 14 million members, more than half outside the United States. Most American Mormons live in the West, with more than a third concentrated in Utah. American Mormons are overwhelmingly white (88%) and Republican-leaning (74%), according to the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.