Utah

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Podcast: Attention Gray Lady folks! Latter-day Saints are not the only skilled fantasy scribes

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Podcast: Attention Gray Lady folks! Latter-day Saints are not the only skilled fantasy scribes

Two decades ago, I attended Nimbus 2003, the first global Harry Potter studies convention.

This colorful event, at a Disney hotel in Orlando, drew a capacity crowd of about 600 participants — about 90% of which were female — from the United States, England and Australia.

What kinds of people showed up and what does this flashback have to do with this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in)? Hold that thought. Here’s a bite of the “On Religion” column that I wrote about that event, one of many Harry Potter-related columns I have written over the years.

In hotel hallways, witch wannabes raised their expensive, professionally carved wands and fought imaginary duels with tickling spells and other incantations. In the lecture halls, others heard papers on everything from Harry Potter and the First Amendment to "Greenhouses are for Girls, Beasts are for Boys? Gender Characterizations in Harry Potter." …

Organizers also dedicated an entire track of lectures and panels to spiritual issues, addressing topics such as "Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Heavenly Virtues: Moral Development in Harry Potter" and "Can Any Wisdom Come From Wizardry?"

I was not surprised that a large number of the participants mentioned, in registration, that they were Wiccans or interested in other forms of neo-paganism. However, it was clear that at least half of the crowd of readers with marked-up Harry Potter books were mothers — often homeschool enthusiasts — who were Catholics, evangelical Protestants or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was important, some said, that author J.K. Rowling had outed herself, early on, as a communicant in the progressive Scottish Episcopal Church. She told a Canadian newspaper: "Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. … If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader — whether 10 or 60 — will be able to guess what is coming in the books."

Now, this brings us to that fascinating New York Times feature that ran with this double-decker headline:

An Unexpected Hotbed of Y.A. Authors: Utah

A tight-knit community of young-adult writers who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has yielded smashes like “Twilight.” But religious doctrine can clash with creative freedoms

Yes, it’s interesting that Mormons play a major role in the world of fantasy fiction for children, teenagers and family-reading circles. I also thought it was interesting that editors at the world’s most prestigious newspaper have never heard of some other religious believers who have excelled as fantasy stars.

Can you say “Narnia”? How about “The Hobbit”? How about “A Wrinkle in Time”?


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Thinking about C.S. Lewis and today's emerging prophets of transhumanism

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Thinking about C.S. Lewis and today's emerging prophets of transhumanism

Are there any C.S. Lewis enthusiasts in the house?

How about people who, well, detest the famous Oxford don and Christian apologist?

It is my hope that this think piece (pounded out during a two-week road trip) will appeal to both.

Right now, I am about to finish reading — for the 10th time, or something like that — the Lewis “Science fiction trilogy.” It ends with “That Hideous Strength,” a head-spinning mix of science fiction, Arthurian legend and a blistering satire of stuffy, insular, corrupt, boring elites in British higher education (in other words, the world in which Lewis lived until his death in 1963). It’s the narrative fiction take on his prophetic “The Abolition of Man.”

I do not want to give away the plot, of course. But the big idea is that elite there’s that word again) scientific materialists, in a quest for their own brand of immortality and desire to modify the human person, turn to the occult and, well, the Powers of Darkness. You may never hear the term “head,” when used to describe the leader of a school or movement, again without thinking of this book.

So what would Lewis think of this haunting feature from Suzy Weiss at The Free Press? Here’s the double-decker headline:

The Tech Messiahs Who Want to Deliver Us from Death

They see death as a software error — and they have a plan for fixing it. But should they?

The overture:

Kai Micah Mills is going to freeze his parents. 

“They’re both going to be cryopreserved, regardless of their wishes,” Mills told me. 


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Podcast: Religion ghosts in Pornhub's battle with Utah, Louisiana and red-state America?

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Podcast: Religion ghosts in Pornhub's battle with Utah, Louisiana and red-state America?

When I first encountered David French, roughly two decades ago, he was a First Amendment expert known for his defense of religious liberty — for all kinds of people, including evangelicals in blue zip codes.

That was “conservative,” back then. Today, French has moved to the op-ed pages of The New York Times. I guess, in the ongoing Donald Trump era (#ALAS), that makes him what some would call a “New York Times conservative.” That isn’t a compliment.

I don’t always agree with French, but he remains a voice that old-school First Amendment liberals — folks who are often called “conservative” these days — will need to follow as conflicts continue to escalate on issues of free speech, religious liberty and freedom of association.

This brings me to a byte of French material that I inserted into this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). These are the first two sentences of French’s must-read 2020 book “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” Here we go:

“It’s time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States cannot be guaranteed. At this moment in history, there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pulling us apart.”  

A few lines later he adds this material, to which I alluded in the podcast (and in my recent Religion & Liberty essay on the state of American journalism):

“We lack a common popular culture. Depending on where we live and what we believe, we watch different kinds of television, we listen to different kinds of music, and we often watch different sports.

“We increasingly live separate from each other. … The geography that a person calls home, whether it is rural, exurban, suburban, or urban, is increasingly predictive of voting habits.”

The Internet, however, is everywhere. So is digital pornography.

Some people are more concerned about that than others and, yes, the level of concern seems to have something to do with religion and culture (and, thus, zip codes). This brings us to the Axios headline that inspired this podcast: “Pornhub blocks access in Utah in protest of new age verification law.”

The religion angle? Well, we are talking about politics in Utah. Here is some of that Axios news-you-can-use information:

Driving the news: Pornhub.com now opens on devices in Utah with a message that states the company has "made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Utah."


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News coverage of LGBTQ issues enters mop-up phase in the religion marketplace

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News coverage of LGBTQ issues enters mop-up phase in the religion marketplace

It has been a big week for the ongoing LGBTQ+ story. Even as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about how much to tolerate personal dissent against same-sex marriage, the U.S. House, the House this morning passed nationwide codification of the gay marriage right that the Court enacted by 5-4 in the 2015 Obergefell ruling.

The new law effectively concludes phase one in the unusually rapid upending of a central societal structure dating from antiquity. The next few years, the media will be covering the mop-up phase facing religious groups and individuals that uphold traditional teachings about marriage, over against anti-discrimination assertions by government, Hollywood, corporate America and private actors.

The current Supreme Court case (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, docket #21-476) involves a Colorado website designer who does not create pages that celebrate same-sex weddings — though she serves gay customers otherwise. Her free-speech claim is opposed by, for example, Reform Judaism, many liberal Protestants and other social liberals.

Observers figure that the Court, with a more traditionalist makeup than in 2015, will back this designer’s plea and ultimately look kindly upon further religious claims under the Bill of Rights. If so, the future conflict may focus on the Carborundum tactic as the LGBTQ+ movement grinds down conservatives’ energy, time and money in long-running legal maneuvers, meanwhile building cultural pressure to marginalize conscientious objectors as simple bigots.

An opinion-page complaint against religion’s “encroachment” upon society, posted by NBC News and written by Stanford University journal editor Marcie Bianco, neatly encapsulates where this culture war appears to be heading. This is the voice from the cultural left:

Dig a bit deeper, and what this act really represents is the inflexibility of our nation’s institutions and the national entrenchment — despite constitutional assurances to the contrary — of religion.


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NBC News promotes its own Satanism-scare report, which is itself a kind of scare-news device

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NBC News promotes its own Satanism-scare report, which is itself a kind of scare-news device

I have always found it interesting when major news organizations conduct a public-relations blitz — primarily with messages to other journalists — promoting one of their own news reports.

Obviously, the message to other journalists is this: We deserve praise for doing this story. The implied message is usually: We were brave to do this story. Now, all you other newsroom folks should follow our courageous example and cover this story, too.

In this case, we are talking about an NBC News press release with this dramatic double-decker headline:

NBC NEWS: SATANIC PANIC IS MAKING A COMEBACK, FUELED BY QANON BELIEVERS AND GOP INFLUENCERS

Baseless Accusations Are Branding People As Satanist Pedophiles At The Speed Of The Internet — Just Ask A GOP Prosecutor Who Recently Lost Re-Election.

There are several levels to This. Big. Story.

(1) There is a totally valid story about Internet-based attacks against a progressive Republican — David Leavitt, the prosecuting attorney for Utah County — attempting to smear him with wild stories about Satanic, cannibalistic attacks on children. Leavitt is active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the younger brother of a former Utah governor, Mike Leavitt.

(2) There is a valid, and by now very familiar, story about QAnon, politicians, pedophiles, cannibalism, pizza and, of course, the work of Satan in one form of another (hold that thought). If you have followed GetReligion, you know that we think the world of QAnon conspiracy theories is important and worthy of tight, fact-based coverage.

(3) There are some, repeat “some,” Republicans on the right fringe who now rush to connect Satanic worship to all kinds of trends in the free-for-all that is modern American culture. These politicos have been known to blur the line between organized, public Satanic religious groups and the secret world (it’s hard to know the size of this phenomenon) of people attempting to practice dark arts of various kinds.

(4) There are many conservative, and very mainstream, religious believers who openly state their beliefs that incarnate evil — as in the biblical Satan — is at work, on one level or another, in activities including child abuse, domestic violence, terrorism, warfare, etc. Yes, some believe that using permanent forms of gender-transition surgery and puberty blockers on children fall into this category.

It’s important to note, however, that someone like Pope Francis saying that he sees Satanic forces at work in our world is not the same thing as people making accusations against, for example, the specific and official Church of Satan. Yes, Pope Francis has probably used more Satan-based language than any pope in several generations, including on some issues linked to the Sexual Revolution.

This NBC News report takes the important story at level (1) and links it to level (2) — which is valid. The problem, from my journalistic point of view, is that NBC News then attempts to take some poll-based information about questions at level (3) and even (4) and then blend that material with (2) Qanon and the (1) attacks on someone like Leavitt, arguing that belief in the reality of incarnate evil (a mainstream Christian belief, as in this Catholic Catechism reference) is creating a wider trend that threatens American democracy, or words to that effect.


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How do modern Latter-day Saints view their faith's complex history of polygamy?

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How do modern Latter-day Saints view their faith's complex history of polygamy?

THE QUESTION:

How do Latter-day Saints view the polygamy in their faith's past?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which seeks to abolish its former "Mormon" nickname) was founded in 1830 by the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., who later began practicing and advocating polygamy (the faith prefers the term "plural marriage" and in past times spoke of "the Principle.") Smith wanted this kept secret but dissenters inside his flock revealed the controversial teaching, which played a role in his 1844 assassination.

After Smith's successor as prophet, Brigham Young, led LDS adherents to Utah, the church in 1852 openly proclaimed its practice. This scandalized the nation. Young himself was to take 55 wives. But when federal laws attacked the faith's very organizational existence, President Wilford Woodruff halted the practice in the 1890 "Manifesto." Today, polygamy is grounds for excommunication, even in nations where it is legal.

That is basic, well-established history. But there's far more to be said.

In recent times, the Utah-based faith has issued relatively candid explanations (click here), as well as on the subject of "plural marriage” (click here). Now the church's Deseret Book company has published "Let's Talk About Polygamy," a more thorough and fascinating accounting by Brittany Chapman Nash, a 10-year veteran of the church's official history department who emphasizes the experience of LDS women. Much of the following relies upon her research.

Twenty-first Century Americans might wonder why LDS followers ever wanted multiple spouses. At one level, the answer is quite simple. As Nash says, "they believed God commanded it." Members then and now believe in Smith as God's unique prophet and that all his revelations established the "latter-day" restoration of true Christianity that had been lost for nearly 19 centuries.

Smith's own marital history began with his 1827 wedding to the former Emma Hale. His early scriptural revelations in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants advocated traditional Christian monogamy. But in the mid-1830s Smith privately wed 16-year-old Fanny Alger, who worked in the Smiths' home. She soon moved away and married another man. History does not record what Emma knew or thought about this.


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Thinking with Ryan Burge: Concerning young Latter-day Saints, third parties and life post-Trump

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Thinking with Ryan Burge: Concerning young Latter-day Saints, third parties and life post-Trump

There are times, when you are reading Ryan Burge on Twitter (which journalists should, of course, be doing) and you see signs that he has read some religion-news related item somewhere that has caused him to do that thing that he does — sift through lots of poll numbers looking for a new angle.

What we have here is a pair of tweets linked to a Christian Sagers think piece at The Deseret News that I had missed. The headline: “Are Latter-day Saint voters turning blue?”

That’s blue as in learning toward the Democratic Party, not feeling sad or depressed. That would be a huge news story hinting at other possible changes among centrists on moral and cultural issues.

Burge send me this comment containing what he thinks is the key question about this possible news twist.

The big question is: have younger LDS really abandoned the Republican Party? I don't think that we will ever know for sure until Trump is off the ballot completely.

So where to begin? Here is the overture in Sager’s piece, noting that a recent:

… Cook Political Report concludes that all four of Utah’s congressional districts are among the most Democratic-trending in the country. Latter-day Saint voters in Arizona doubled their Democratic turnout from 2016.

Meanwhile, a Democratic activist group with whom I spoke recently is optimistic about converting Latter-day Saint women, traditionally Republican, who it believes to be rejecting the GOP in greater percentages than other religious demographics.

That candidate Donald Trump fared so poorly among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2016 was met with astonishment in national media coverage and a flurry of conjectures that Latter-day Saints were up for grabs.

And yet, the political status of the Latter-day Saint voting bloc doesn’t fit into a tidy narrative. Yes, there are signs that some Latter-day Saints are reconsidering the modern GOP, but at the same time there are suggestions that Latter-day Saints remain reliably Republican.

Sure enough, there are other complications that need to be considered when looking at conservatives in this Donald Trump-warped political age.


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Weekend Plug-In year in review: Religion-beat scribes select their top journalism of 2020

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What a year for religion news!

From the pandemic to the election, the major headlines of 2020 had huge faith angles.

For this special year-end edition of Weekend Plug-in, I asked some of the nation’s top reporters and columnists to share the favorite religion story they wrote during 2020.

However, some of them couldn’t stop at just one. I guess I’m OK with that because it means more terrific links in the list below.

It’s a holiday week, so I didn’t catch up with everybody. But I sure appreciate my colleagues who responded. And I beg forgiveness for the excellent Godbeat work I missed in this roundup, this week and every week.

Power Up: The Year’s Best Reads

Journalists who write about religion pick their top story — or in some cases, top stories — of 2020.

• Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post: Seeking power in Jesus’ name: Trump sparks a rise of Patriot Churches, published Oct. 26.

• Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service: Stacey Abrams’ passion for voting began with her preacher parents, published Oct. 16.

• Deepa Bharath, Orange County Register: Hospital chaplains fill role of surrogate family members during times of isolation, depression, death, published July 12.

• Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post: These Mormon twins worked together on an IRS whistleblower complaint over the church’s billions — and it tore them apart, published Jan. 16.

• Katherine Burgess, Memphis Commercial Appeal: Family of Tennessee death row inmate awaits 'miracle' as 11th hour DNA test underway, published Oct. 20.


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Latter-day Saints march out: AP needed to talk to religious groups that still back Scouting

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For leaders of the organization formerly known as the BOY Scouts, the clock is ticking toward a radically different New Year that will change all kinds of equations in the struggling organization that once occupied the safe middle-ground in American culture.

I am referring to the moment when entire troops of boys in the faith group formerly known as the Mormons will begin hitting the exit doors of Scouting. (Click here for lots of GetReligion posts on this topic.)

This is the kind of symbolic event that deserves a big feature story from the Associated Press — ”Mormons pulling 400,000 youths out of struggling Boy Scouts“ — which will run in mainstream newspapers from coast to coast — as it should.

It’s a good story. The question, for me, is whether it needed to dedicate two or three paragraphs to the big picture — as in other angles linked to religion that will affect Scouting in the near future. Hold that thought, because we will return to it. Meanwhile, here is the overture of this new AP piece:

KAYSVILLE, Utah (AP) — For decades, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of Boy Scouts of America’s greatest allies and the largest sponsor of troops. But on Jan. 1, the Utah-based faith will deliver the latest blow to the struggling organization when it pulls out more than 400,000 young people and moves them into a new global program of its own.

The change brings excitement and some melancholy for members of the faith and may push the Boy Scouts closer to the brink of bankruptcy as it faces a new wave of sex abuse lawsuits. 

Losing the church will mean about an 18% drop in Boy Scout youth membership compared with last year’s numbers and mark the first time since the World War II era that the figure will fall below 2 million. At its peak in the 1970s, more than 4 million boys were Scouts.


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