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July 2017

July 03, 2017

A Letter for My Someday-Teenage Children

I write all of this to you, my kids-who-are-probably-too-young-to-make-it-through-this-entire-letter, to explain my commitment to Mormonism,...

June 2017

June 15, 2017

Confederate Symbols and the Black Flag of ISIS: Two Sides of the Same Coin

A terrorist symbol looms over my hometown. It stands for an intolerant, un-American ideology, one...

May 2017

May 26, 2017

America Needs Mitt Romney

A Senator Romney could stand up to Donald Trump without losing his seat. America needs...

April 2017

April 21, 2017

First-Order Myopia: What Donald Trump Can Learn from Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith's life was cut short because he failed to look beyond first-order consequences. Trump...

April 09, 2017

Unbridling Mormon Illustration: “From the Dust” – 2 of 2

In yesterday's post, I discussed the relationship between Mormon illustration and historical accuracy, specifying that...

April 06, 2017

Trump Should Learn from Andrew Jackson: Keep Church Out of State

Trump can learn from his hero and reject a fusion of Church and State. Among...

April 02, 2017

The Anti-Trump General Conference

Like many Mormons around the world, I’ve spent this weekend watching the Church’s General Conference,...

March 2017

March 20, 2017

A Hillbilly, a Professor, and a Mormon Mayor Walk into a (Dry) Bar . . .

The experience Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams gained on his Mormon mission helped him...

March 10, 2017

What Vox got wrong about Jon Huntsman

Why did Trump pick Huntsman as Ambassador to Russia? The reasons are many. On March...

March 06, 2017

Oaks vs. Oaks: First Cousins and LDS General Authorities Square Off

Elders Dallin H. Oaks and Robert C. Oaks may have the same grandparents, but their...

March 05, 2017

If Thomas Friedman were Mormon . . .

The New York Times columnist would love the Church's Global Education Initiative, but Donald Trump...

February 2017

February 12, 2017

A Chastened Chaffetz Should Learn from Mo Udall

Jason Chaffetz was recently tasked by angry constituents to "do [his] job." He should look...

October 2016

October 23, 2016

Not a Democracy, Not a Dictatorship: My Big Fat Mormon Family

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously suggested moving to New Zealand to avoid...

August 2016

August 13, 2016

Trump’s Threat to Mormons

Donald Trump poses a unique threat to the interests, freedom, and safety of the Mormon...

April 2016

April 21, 2016

What BYU’s Honor Code Office Doesn’t Understand About Trauma is Endangering Victims

By now, I'm guessing you've heard about BYU's track record of using Title IX investigations...

March 2016

March 22, 2016

Ted Cruz’s Weak Islamaphobia

In the aftermath of this morning's tragic terrorist attack in Brussels, each presidential candidate is...

March 02, 2016

Wait, What Is The White Horse Prophecy?

Americans rarely unilaterally agree on anything, but there has risen one important break from that...

February 2016

February 28, 2016

Who Will Get the Mormon Vote, Part 2

Editor's note: This post is an updated version of an earlier post, which can be...

January 2016

January 04, 2016

Cliven Bundy and His Sons Are Terrorists: So Why Haven’t They Been Excommunicated?

The notorious Cliven Bundy is back in the news, this time because two of his...

November 2015

November 20, 2015

Finding Hope From The Westboro Baptist Church

For years, the Westboro Baptist Church have been synonymous with bigotry. I learned this when...

November 19, 2015

See, Mormons and Muslims Really do Have Stuff in Common

While advocating for Donald Trump's insistence that Muslim's deserve less rights than other religious Americans, Katrina...

November 16, 2015

What Keeps Mormonism Ticking

We Mormons aren't no. 1 at everything, but in at least one way we rise above...

October 2015

October 26, 2015

From the Archives: Ghost Stories

Editors Note: Welcome to Halloween Week at Peculiar People! The following is a post from...

October 26, 2015

Should We Really Worry About Ben Carson’s Religion?

Presidential Candidate Ben Carson is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a protestant sect of...

October 20, 2015

Mitt Romney Still Doesn’t Want to Talk About Race in the Mormon Church

So the guy who was in charge of getting Barack Obama elected both times, David Axelrod,...

October 19, 2015

Sister Wives’ Madison Brown’s Mormon Baptism Rejection, Explained

Confession: I actually really love the show Sister Wives. It is a pretty remarkable snapshot...

October 19, 2015

Scandal on the Mormon Ranch

In case you haven't heard, the LDS Church is currently involved in a rather large...

October 16, 2015

The 5 Best References to Mormonism in the History of Television

So that Quantico show debuted a little while back. It's a show about FBI agents...

October 15, 2015

What Should We Take Away From Slate’s Missionary Health Article?

We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care,...

October 13, 2015

Do Mormon Missionaries Get Shafted on Health Care?

Mark Joseph Stern over at Slate just published an interesting article about the state of...