A curious pioneer blessing

Excerpts of A curious pioneer blessing, Worlds Without End

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...…   Elders William Hall, Rabins R. Strong, Llewellyn Mantle, Joseph Champlin, Martin Potter, and one more laid hands on the horse and commanded the unclean and foul spirits of every name and nature to depart and go to the Gentiles at Warsaw and trouble the Saints no more, when the horse rolled twice over in great distress, sprang to his feet, squealed, vomited and purged, and the next morning was harnessed to a load of about 12 cwt. and performed his part as usual. ...

September-6 excommunicant returns to the fold

Excerpts of Mormon to tell how she came back to the faith, Peggy Fletcher Stack,The Salt Lake Tribune

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[A] lifelong Latter-day Saint, Hanks had not been attending a Mormon ward for several years. Then she was accused of apostasy for editing an anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, which included a discussion of the all-male LDS priesthood and women's relationship to it.

Hanks was excommunicated in 1993, one of the "September Six," Mormon writers and scholars who were disciplined by their local LDS officials in the same month.

LDS Church unhappy with Businessweek portrayal of finances

Excerpts of Businessweek Mormon Cover: Church Lashes Out For Portrayal Of Prophets And Profits, Daniel Burke, Huffington Post

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The Mormon church is lashing back at a business magazine that parodied their prophet's mission and portrayed the church as lucratively rich but miserly with charitable donations.

A lengthy story in Bloomberg Businessweek that hits newsstands on Friday (July 13) details The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' vast financial holdings, from a $2 billion mall in Salt Lake City to a $1 billion ranch in Florida.

New forum: "Worlds Without End: A Mormon Studies Roundtable"

Worlds Without End: A Mormon Studies Roundtable is a group blog for friendly, high-quality academic conversation about Mormon religious worlds and their larger contexts, connections, and consequences. Participants have been carefully selected for their intelligence, diversity of perspectives, and friendly, constructive, respectful styles of discourse.

Faith and intellect: Commentary from Mormon Newsroom

Excerpts of Mormon and Modern, Mormon Newsroom, no author listed
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Latter-day Saints believe that men and women bear the divine gifts of intellectual reasoning and moral intuition. Devoted followers of many of the world's faith traditions cultivate both. Mormon doctrine stresses the need and responsibility to engage both head and heart in decision making, in learning, in relationships and in worship.

Rift Forms in Movement as Belief in Gay ‘Cure’ Is Renounced

Excerpts of Rift Forms in Movement as Belief in Gay 'Cure' Is Renounced by Erik Eckholm, New York Times

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For more than three decades, Exodus International has been the leading force in the so-called ex-gay movement, which holds that homosexuals can be "cured" through Christian prayer and psychotherapy.

Exodus leaders claimed its network of ministries had helped tens of thousands rid themselves of unwanted homosexual urges. The notion that homosexuality is not inborn but a choice was seized on by conservative Christian groups who oppose legal protections for gay men and lesbians and same-sex marriage.

But the ex-gay movement has been convulsed as the leader of Exodus, in a series of public statements and a speech to the group's annual meeting last week, renounced some of the movement's core beliefs.

Mormon Stories Sunday School

Excerpts of Mormon Stories Sunday School 

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...Bible scholar Jared Anderson outlines the vision, tone, goals, and proposed content of this Sunday School podcast. There will be a weekly Gospel Doctrine podcast entitled "Engaging Gospel Doctrine", as well as a "ward library" of expanding content under the title "Excavating Scripture". He also introduces skills for "close reading" of the scriptures as well as suggests resources....

This project models Sunday School teaching that is substantive and engaging while remaining faith-friendly