Among the items in this issue of Religion News Briefs: Criticizing the Mormon Church can get you excommunicated. Leaving the destructive Scientology cult is scary (and wise).
Also: After three decades of debate on homosexuality, the Presbyterian Church has changed its definition of marriage. Plus: the Ex-Hijabi Fashion Photo Blog.
Today in 1997 police in Southern California discovered the bodies of 39 people — who had committed suicide in order to board a UFO they believed would take them to heaven.
Black magic is firmly ingrained in some African belief systems. We’ll tell you what gri-gris are used for.
Then there is an illustration of religious insanity provided by a preacher who thinks he is an apostle.
Plus: get up to speed on the religious exemption case the US Supreme Court is grappling with.
Inside this issue of Religion News Briefs: items on Scientology, the International Cultic Studies Association, the Plymouth Brethren (which you know as the Exclusive Brethren), and more.
Also: the Book of Mormon vs DNA. And Saudi Arabia’s religious police. As always we include a modicum of opinion, as well as links to research resources.
Many Mormons who discover information about their church’s teachings online end up leaving the Mormon Church.
A trip to Dubai, where Islamic Law rules, can be like a visit to the Dark Ages.
And.. is it possible to be an Evangelical Christian and yet appear on the cover of Playboy?
As it has done throughout its history, the Mormon Church has again adapted its Scriptures.
Although this time around the changes introduced affect for the most part chapter headings, study helps and historical descriptions — those changes are significant — and, as one observer notes, “carry the unmistakable imprimatur of authority.”
The Mormon Church has lowered the age limit for its full-time missionaries to 18 for men, and 19 for women.
In the face of poor retention rates and questionable membership figures, the church is counting on this change to dramatically increase the ranks of its full-time missionary force.
Among the items in today’s edition of Religion News Briefs: ‘Come to church and give us your money: We’re buying a mall.’
Plus: the Muslim cleric at the foreground of the campaign to prosecute a young Pakistani girl accused of blasphemy may have planted the evidence — burned pages from the Koran — himself.
From the religion beat: the popular Faith & Reason column at USA TODAY is closing down.
If you follow religion news you can spend countless hours each day just trying to keep up with stories that involve Mormonism and the Mormon Church.
From among the ones we have read we’ve selected just five stories we think you might want to read.
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.