Mormons operating independently of the Mormon Church — and in direct contradiction to the church’s edicts on the subject — have posthumously baptized Anne Frank in a Mormon ritual referred to as ‘Baptism for the Dead.’

In response the LDS Church has issued its strongest response yet to the violation of its agreement not to do proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims who are not related to a church member.

The Mormon Church has apologised for posthumously baptizing the parents of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

But the controversy over its un-biblical practice of posthumous proxy baptisms the dead continues.

Most pastors feel strongly that Mormons are not Christians, according to a survey by LifeWay Research.

Three out of four pastors surveyed by Southern Baptist-affiliated LifeWay Research said they disagreed with the statement that Mormons are Christians.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney Saturday sought to calm the religious divisions that surfaced at the influential Values Voters Summit during his second bid to become the first member of the Church of Latter Day Saints to win the presidency.

Romney addressed the issue a day after Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress dubbed Mormonism a “cult” following his endorsement of Texas Gov. Rick Perry at the gathering and moments before Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, said that Romney’s faith was “outside the mainstream of historic Christian orthodoxy.”

A community of up to 500 Mormon fundamentalists make their home in an area near Humansville, Missouri.

A pair of Humansville twins say they lived in that community for nearly 10 years before leaving the man they both married. The 27-year-old women told Cedar County authorities in February they were victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault at the hands of the husband they shared.

Residents of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in the small British Columbia commune of Bountiful believe they are adhering to the original word of the religion’s prophet, says a former plural wife and advocate of polygamy

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon Church, this week paid $2.1 million for 10 acres of land in Oakland Twp., Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.

Since 1840, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been encouraged to perform baptisms in temples for their deceased relatives.

Mormonism and politics have merged in two Western campaigns this month, providing a glimpse of the renewed scrutiny Mitt Romney could face in a 2012 presidential run.

In the Nevada Senate race, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faced allegations from his Republican opponent’s pastor that he is a member of a cult. Reid is a Mormon convert.

Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle on Monday disavowed a claim by her former pastor that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a cult, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.

Angle’s former pastor, John Reed of Sonrise Church in Reno, last week called the Mormon Church a cult. But the term cult has different meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. For instance, while the Mormon Church has some cult-like elements, it generally is not considered to be a cult in the sociological sense of the term.

However, theologically the LDS Church is a cult of Christianity. That is, while it claims to be Christian in nature, its doctrines and practices violate the essential doctrines of the historic Christian faith.

In its defence the LDS Church often points out that its full name includes the words ‘Jesus Christ.’ Which is almost as clever as insisting that you can buy a $20 ‘Rolex’ in Tijuana…

The suspected gunman in the fatal shooting of a Mormon church official in Central California was mentally ill and believed the church had wronged him when he was a member in the 1980s, family members said Monday.

Kenneth James Ward, 47, would go through delusional spells when he blamed the Mormon church for his troubles, according to his younger brother, Mike Ward.

“When my brother had one of his episodes, he conjured up in his mind that he thought that the Mormons were sending him to hell. He would tell me that,” Mike Ward, 44, said in a phone interview from his home in Bakersfield.

It’s an extreme makeover, image-style. Fearing that they have been mistakenly stereotyped by the public, Mormons have launched an aggressive advertising campaign to prove that they are just like everybody else.

“We want to help people understand that we are not who they think we are,” said Ron Wilson, the church official overseeing the campaign. “We’re no different than you. In fact, we might be your next-door neighbor.”

To a certain extend that may be true, but there’s a lot the Mormon Church doesn’t tell you in the ads — just like the LDS missionaries on your doorstep are not upfront about Mormon theology either.

Theologically, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity. Simply slapping the name of Jesus onto a church doesn’t make it Christian in the same way the name Rolex on a $25 watch on sale in Tijuana doesn’t mean you get the genuine article.

In the end, no amount of advertising takes away from the fact that the Mormon Church has plagiarized and repackaged the Christian faith.

George P. Lee once enjoyed such widespread respect as the first and only American Indian LDS general authority that many Mormons believed he someday might become an apostle or even higher.

But such talk ended in 1989, when Lee, who died this week at age 67, was excommunicated for “heresy” and “conduct unbecoming a member of the church.” Later, he admitted to attempted child sex abuse, and his wife divorced him.

“George P. Lee is one of the truly tragic figures in modern Mormon history,” Armand Mauss, an LDS sociologist in Irvine, Calif., said Thursday. He was “both created and destroyed” by changing Mormon teachings and policies regarding native peoples.

Lee claimed his ouster was triggered by his opposition to the faith’s shifting approach to its Indian members.

The doctrines of the Mormon Church — theologically a cult of Christianity — frequently change, in part because the church’s scriptures have many internal problems requiring edits and ‘new revelations’.

On July 24 1847, Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah, notes AP.

Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons, is criticizing the LDS Church for its efforts to thwart the legalization of same-sex marriage in Argentina.

Last week, Argentina became the first Latin American nation to allow gay marriage. Mexico City also sanctions such unions.

Despite the LDS Church’s claim that it had not taken a stand on Argentina’s move to allow gay marriage, a high-ranking church official did join other religious leaders there to plan opposition to the bill.