latter-day saints

Most LDS members are not from the United States. The church’s leadership and practices are another story.

According to some Mormon traditions, God and Jesus have made babies—God with the Heavenly Mother, and Jesus with one of his wives.

There are no heroes in Alex Beam’s tale of the killing of Mormon founder Joseph Smith.

Jane Elizabeth Manning James, a black Mormon pioneer, was known to some Latter-day Saints historians in the latter part of the 20th century but was hardly a household name. Linda King Newell and Valerie Tippets Avery wrote the first well-researched article about Jane in LDS Church publication The Ensign. Subsequent Mormon authors focused on the early years of Jane’s life, particularly on founder Joseph Smith accepting her and her family into his home. 

When people who don’t know a lot about American Christianity hear that I am Mennonite, they sometimes ask if it’s the same as being Mormon. No, I say, and add a stock reply: other than starting with the same letter of the alphabet and being inscrutable to outsiders, the groups are quite different.

After reading Joanna Brooks’s memoir The Book of Mormon Girl, I will no longer answer with such alacrity.

The great newish online journal Religion & Politics alerted me to the fact that today is the anniversary of JFK's speech to the Houston ministers.

Romney's faith, like Obama's, is distinctly American yet often misunderstood. And campaigns are rarely an occasion to increase understanding.

An annotated list by the author of Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction.

The LDS canon's four books carry equal weight of authority. All are read as historical witnesses to God's promise of salvation.

It has become fashionable to narrate the lives of books. Paul Gutjahr offers a brief and readable account of the Book of Mormon's history.

The 19th-century Mormon kingdom emphasized the common good. Later came a shift toward personal morality as the mark of saintliness.