Mormon Bulletin
By Mormon Bulletin
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Podcast Description
A podcast for news relating Mormonism. Listen as our panel informs you about the week's most important Mormon news stories, including important events happening within Mormonism and stories in the national media about Mormonism. One half hour a week is all you need to stay on top of all things Mormon!
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Episode 9: April 5, 2012 | James, Carey, Chuck, Michael, and Tom discuss the week's news in Mormonism. 1. BBC Documentary on Mormons (Youtube link here) 2. Gallup ranks Utah as the America's 2nd most religious state 3. Some LDS Temples prohibit menstruating females from performing baptisms for the dead 4. Obama advisor David Axelrod Tweets menstruation baptism for the dead story 5. City Creek Mall is opened 6. Mormon Views of Wealth 7. Are Mormons Keeping Mitt Romney Afloat? 8. Study rates Latter-day Saints high for 'prosocial behavior' This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic.. Some LDS Temples prohibit menstruating females from performing baptisms for the dead | 4/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 8: March 11, 2012 | James, Joel, and Karen discuss the week's news in Mormonism. 1. Baptisms for the dead - again!2. Church changing its tithing slips3. BYU professor Randy Bott makes comments about the church's pre-1978 ban on ordaining African American males to the priesthood, sparks controversy and a response from the church4. Thomas Monson on Gallup Survey's list of top 10 most admired men in America:5. Google Apostasy in Australia and New Zealand. 6. An official Church publication acknowledges Joseph Smith's polyandry and that he likely consummated some of his polygamous marriages.7. Press coverage of Mitt Romney's missionary experiences in France. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic.. | 3/11/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 7: March 5, 2012 | We're back! James, Tom, and Michael discuss the week's news in Mormonism. 1. Baptisms for the dead2. The Rescue; more about the Rescue3. Virginia brothers start free shuttle to Washington DC temple 4. Mormon apostles treated as super stars5. New study about the demographics of Mormons. Link 2; Link 3. Link 4. 6. Affinity fraud among Mormons. Latest example: DBSI in Meridian, Idaho.7. David Archulete is going on a mission! This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic.. | 3/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 6: November 30, 2011 | James and Michael discuss the week's news in Mormonism. 1. Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada upholds the legality of anti-polygamy laws Beyond their presence in Utah, Arizona, and Texas, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has colonies in Canada. Fudamentalist polygamist Mormons have lived in a town in British Columbia called Bountiful since the 1940s. Two FLDS leaders in Canada were charged with violating anti-polygamy laws of the province of British Columbia. Their prosecution was stayed in 2009 while the parties challenged the constitutionality of the laws in the BC Supreme Court. Chief Justice Robert Bauman of the court ruled that the anti-polygamy law violates the FLDS members' religious freedom, but that the harm against women and children outweighs this. Since the current law allows for prosecution of minors in polygamous relationships, he suggested that the law be changed to only allow for prosecution of adults. The law was defended by the federal government of Canada and by the government of BC. The law was opposed by the FLDS church, by civil liberties groups, and by polyamorist groups. FLDS members are predictably upset about the ruling. 2. The BYU Tithing Police When Ernest L. Wilkinson assumed the presidency of BYU in 1957, he was shocked to learn that many faculty members either did not pay any tithing to the church, or did not pay a full ten percent of their income. At one point he claimed that up to twenty-seven percent of faculty members were not full tither payers. Wilkinson decided to use faculty members' history of tithing payments to determine eligiblity for raises, promotions, and continuing employment. To make up for faculty members' shortfalls, Wilkinson wanted to reduce raises for faculty members not paying a full tithe by the amount they were in “arrears” in their tithing. Local bishoprics and stake presidents, however, resisted his efforts. Eventually, though, he was able to get a list of partial and non-tithe payers (but without any information about specific payments). One historian estimates that at least “two dozen (probably more) teachers were dismissed or resigned” because of church problems originating with Wilkinson’s tithing crackdown. Wilkinson left BYU to pursue an unsuccesful bid for the U.S. Senate. When he returned, church leadership were more resistant to his tactics and even today, “current BYU policy strictly prohibits the release of faculty tithing information to university administrators.” 3. Mormon Athletes A recent article in the Deseret News features some notable LDS athletes. Jason Smyth, who is blind, was the champion in the 100- and 200-meter events at the Beijing Paralympian Champion and is a world record holder. He hopes to become the first athlete to compete in an Olympics and Paralympics in the same summer. Chase and Kyle Cuthbertson, of Scottsboro, Alabama are two freshmen on the Utah Valley University Wrestling squad who both recently returned from LDS missions. And continuing with the Mormon streak of success in distance running, this month the Southern Virginia University women’s cross country team won the United States Collegiate Athletic Association’s national championship. 4. This week in church history We're beginning a new segment where we talk about events in church history that happened on this week. In this week in church history: Thirty years ago, the first branch of the Church on the Cayman Islands was established on November 25, 1981. One hundred fifty years ago President Abraham Lincoln checked out a copy of the Book of Mormon from Library of Congress on November 18,1861. He returned it on 29 Jul 1862. Lincoln was apparently the first U.S. president to read the Book of Mormon. One hundred seventy years ago, baptisms for the dead were performed for the first time in a temple on November 21, 1841 in the Nauvoo temple. 4. Catholics launch Mormon.org-style ad campaign | 11/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 5: November 23, 2011 | James Rogers, Chuck, Joel, Scott, and Tom Perry, discuss the week's news in Mormonism. These are the stories discussed in this week's episode: 1. The Mormon church's growth in Latin America. 2. Christopher Hitchens and Mormonism. 3. Kendall Wilcox fired from BYU. 4. Proposition 8 supporters win California court ruling allowing them to appeal 5. Provo Mormon bishop faces criminal charges for not reporting sex abuse. 6. Circling the Wagons conference for Mormons who are homosexual (including a talk by a Mormon bishop) 7. Warren Jeffs predicts the apocalypse (watch out, Arizona and Seattle!) 8 BYU acapella group Vocal Point loses in NBC's sing off. For those of you who have never heard of Vocal Point, BYU's Divine Comedy explains: This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic.. | 11/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 4: November 15, 2011 | James Rogers, Tom Perry, and Michael discuss the week's news. 1. Hit and run accident kills two missionaries Elders Trevor Reinhold Strong, 21, of Taylorsville, and Derek Jason Walker, 20, of Fairfield, Idaho, were killed in a hit and run accident while riding their bicycles on the evening of Tuesday. November 8. A third missionary — Elder Zachary Todd Harris — survived the accident. The driver and two passengers fled the scene. The driver later turned himself in to police. 2. Millenials suspicious of Mormonism A majority of Millennial voters (ages 18-29) report being uncomfortable with the idea of a Mormon president. By a margin of more than 20 points, Millennial voters are significantly less likely than seniors (ages 65 an older) to say they would be uncomfortable with a Muslim president (50 percent vs. 74 percent) or an atheist president (56 percent vs. 77 percent). Yet when it comes to Mormons, these numbers are reversed: a majority of Millennial voters (54 percent) report being at least somewhat uncomfortable with a Mormon president, compared to less than four-in-ten (39 percent) senior voters. 3. Mormon hipsters The New York Time writes about Mormons trying to be hip: [T]he boundaries of Mormon style are expanding. The highly visible “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign (the subject of a major push on television, billboards, the subway and the Internet) seeks to quash strait-laced stereotypes by showing off a cool, diverse set of Mormons, including, besides Mr. Flowers, a leather-clad Harley aficionado, knit-cap-wearing professional skateboarder and an R & B singer with a shaved head. It’s not just in ads sponsored by the church. On college campuses, city streets and countless style blogs, a young generation of Mormons has adopted a fashion-forward urban aesthetic (geek-chic glasses, designer labels and plenty of vintage) that wouldn’t look out of place at a Bushwick party. The article even talks about getting a beard card at BYU. For those of you who don't know, male students at BYU are not allowed to have beards unless they can prove that they have a medical condition that prevents them from shaving. But moustaches at BYU are allowed: 4. Demographics / population growth rates in Utah Because of the Mormon influence, Utah's growth among non-Latino whites between 2000 and 2010 was the highest in United States, at 16.7 percent (14 times higher than the national average). Other notable ways that Utah stands out are that it has the most children, the youngest median age, the biggest average number of people per household, the lowest percentage of parents in the workforce, and the youngest age at first marriage. 5. David A Bednar describes what the Quorum of the 12 is like A blogger at LDS blog Wheat & Tares recounts Elder David A. Bednar's (of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles) description of what the quorum is like when they meet behind closed doors: The second stage of his response was that we don’t see what goes on behind closed doors. That as soon as any of them go out and visit places and start to feel like they are cool, they return to the Quorum where they are soon put in their place. He then told us what it was like being in a meeting with the rest of the apostles. He described them as speaking very candidly, forthrightly, directly, and boldly, that everyone expressed an opinion and that they often disagreed in a strong manner on certain points. He told an interesting story about when Elder Scott was made an apostle. The candor and directness of the discussion was so intimidating that Elder Scott avoided making a comment for the first three months. During one of the early meetings the intensity of the discussion was higher then normal, and a fellow apostle passed him a note saying: “welcome to the quorum; we play hard ball here.” I did try to ascertain what things they disagreed on; the best I got was ‘things that concern the membership of the church.’ | 11/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 3: October 24, 2011 | Our four panelists, James, Jesse, Joseph, and Michael discuss the week's news. 1. Brandon Flowers is a Mormon! Mormon.org just released a new video featuring Brandon Flowers of the rock band The Killers proclaiming that he is a Mormon. 2. Mitt Romney was a stake president The New York Times published an article discussing Mitt Romney's time as a bishop and stake president, providing a rare discussion in the national media of the role of lay leaders in the Mormon church. The recent expansion of the Mormon.org PR have led some to question whether the timing of the ad campaign is related to the candidacy of two Mormons for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. 3. Dallin H. Oaks testifies before Senate Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee about potential changes in tax exemptions for charities, including religious organizations. 4. Missionary Halloween Costumes Because of the Book of Mormon Musical, Mormon missionary Halloween costumes are a hot item this year. 5. Two Mormon English teachers fired Taiwan because of their religion Two young American women in teaching English at a Catholic school in Taiwan were fired because of their religion. But the Taiwanese government imposed a fine of $20,000 on the school for engaging in religious discrimination. 6. Mormon Scam Watch! Part 1. This episode begins a new irregular segment highlighting scams run by Mormons. This week's featured scammer is former beauty queen (Mrs. Nevada 2006) Juliette Kimoto. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic. Siren sound effect credit: Delilah.. | 10/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 2: October 17, 2011 | In Episode 2 James, Jenne, Jesse, and Michael discuss the following stories: 1. Is Mormonism a cult? At the Value Voters Summit, a Southen Baptist preacher came out in support of Rick Perry instead of Mitt Romney because, in his view, Mormonism is a cult. Perry has said he rejects characterizing Mormonism as a cult, but he has refused to disavow the pastor who called it a cult. The chief Southern Baptist theologian gave a statement that does not mention the word cult, but that says Mormons aren't Christians. The president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention said that Mormonism is not Christian, but that it is “the fourth Abrahamic religion,” along with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. An editorial in the Baltimore Sun argued that Mormonism isn't a cult and that the other Republican candidates should be standing up for Mormonism (“The public would never for one minute accept this kind of anti-Mormon rhetoric if the target had been a Jew, a Catholic, a Baptist, a Lutheran or adherent of most any other major faith. The episode ought to be identified for what it is, religious bigotry, and roundly condemned.”). Along the same lines, an op-ed in Slate said the following: “The gap between these two episodes—clear condemnations of racism, but silence and ambiguity about anti-Mormonism—illustrates a fundamental weakness in our understanding of bigotry. We’re always fighting the last war. We hammer a politician’s connection to prejudice against blacks, no matter how symbolic the prejudice or how old, distant, and tenuous the connection, because nearly everyone recognizes this bigotry as bigotry. Denouncing it is easy. What’s hard is speaking out against a bias that isn’t so widely recognized. It’s politically difficult because challenging a common prejudice could cost you votes. And it’s morally difficult because the biases of your era are hard to see.” Many others weighed in on the controversy including Joanna Brooks and LDS church spokesman Michael Otterson. 2. Mormon modesty blogs This article UK newspaper the Daily Mail discusses Mormon modesty blogs -- blogs by Mormon women about how to dress modestly, yet still be fashionable. 3. Russell Pearce In the recall effort against Arizona State Senate president Russell Pearce, Pearce (who is LDS) claimed that the church supported his efforts to pass Arizona's SB 1070 which imposed stricter enforcement against illegal immigrants. Statements from the church call Pearce's claims into question. 3. BYU Football BYU was not admitted into the Big 12 athletic conference because of problems with the TV rights (including BYU's refusal to play games on Sunday and BYU's insistence on broadcasting some games on BYUtv). 4. Occupy Rexburg BYU-Idaho students take the anti-Wall Street protests to the streets of Rexburg, Idaho. It's not worth spending much time on this, but found this article about this BYUI student trying to organize an occupy Rexburg protest, but afraid to be disciplined by the university. 5. www.birthinginzion.com Panelist Jenne has helped starta new site to revive the community of LDS midwives and birth attendants from the early church (wards and stakes used to call a “ward midwifes”!). 6. "Mitt is so Mormon . . ." Read these, they're funny. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic | 10/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Episode 1: September 25 – October 8, 2011 | In our inaugural podcast, James, Jesse, Joseph, and Michael discuss the following stories: 1. Mormon.org expansion: By sheer volume of published stories, the biggest story this week was that the church is moving to its next phase of test-marketing its new Mormon.org PR campaign, including paying for test market ads in more cities and giving training to all local members in the test markets about the campaign and "encouragement" to create a new Mormon.org profile. The cities targeted in this phase of the campaign are Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; Austin, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Seattle, Washington; Omaha, Nebraska; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and South Bend in Indiana. Here is a sampling of some of the articles about cities targeted by the new Mormon.org camaign: ">second coming of Jesus is not close at hand. 3. LDS church sends opinion surveys to members: The church has been mailing a survey to random sampling of American members of the church to gauge their feelings on a variety of issues, including on illegal immigration and where church members turn to for information about the church. 4. Mormon scout leader who released from position after drawing attention to the BSA's fundraising practices: A Salt Lake area scout leader in an LDS ward was released from his position after he sent an email pointing out to ward members that the money raised by the Friends of Scouting donation drive is principally used to fund the salaries of scout officials at district offices (including the $228,000 salary for the BSA's Great Salt Lake Council's executive officer). 5. Mormons' attitudes toward money: Harper's Magazine recently ran an article critcizing Mormons "propserity gospel"-type attitudes toward money. The Harper's piece is behind a paywall, but here is a critique from the Deseret News. 6. City Creek Project: The LDS Church is having problems finding people to buy or rent housing being built as part of the multi-billion dollar City Creek real estate development project in downtown Salt Lake City funded by the church. 7. Missionaries The Salt Lake Tribune ran an fun article listing interesting factoids about missions and missionaries. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. Bumper music credits: Josh Woodward and The Black Atlantic | 10/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 9 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Keeps Me Entertained!
I think they're doing a great job. I love to listen to all things Mormon, and I usually listen to podcasts when I'm out for a run. Some podcasts are just too boring to keep my attention while I'm running. But for this one, I actually ran around the block a few extra times just so I could finish!
Nicely Done
Here is the format for the podcast: a panel of about four people discuss the previous week's news that relates to Mormonism. They've done a great job at covering important big stories and also interesting stories you may not have heard about, and usually something funny or a little off-the-wall at the end. They've kept me happy so far.
Very Fair
Good discussions of Mormon news, and I think they're pretty neutral and fair minded, presenting all the different sides of the issue (but without being anti-Mormon).
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