Some items on my reading list this Wednesday:

The Red Sox and Yom Kippur: The final Red Sox-Yankees game of the regular season has been moved to accommodate Yom Kippur. The conflict (caused when ESPN sought to have the game moved from the afternoon to the evening of Sunday Aug. 27) was discussed in Tablet magazine; the Associated Press explains the move back to the original time period.

Kennedy and that Mormon temple: The Belmont Citizen-Herald has a story examining local reaction to a tribute to Senator Kennedy by Senator Orrin Hatch, in which Hatch suggested that Kennedy somehow helped the Mormons get permission to put a spire with a statue of the angel Moroni atop their temple in Belmont. Trouble is, the decision was made by the courts, so the Hatch comments raised the question of whether Kennedy interfered with the judiciary, for which there appears to be no evidence. Additional comment at Religion Clause and from Dan Kennedy.

Bible translations: Zondervan yesterday announced that a new translation is in the works for the New International Version of the Bible, which the publisher claims is the world's most popular translation. Ted Olsen at Christianity Today says some decisions about recent revisions are now considered "mistakes." And Eric Gorski of the Associated Press explains the controversy over gender terms in the text.

In the last few months, I have visited Mormon bishops' storehouses in Salt Lake City and in Worcester, Mass., and in today's Globe, I have a story looking at the impact of the economic downturn on the Mormon welfare system, and, in particular, on the bishops' storehouses, where Mormons can get free groceries and household supplies if they demonstrate need to their congregational leaders. An excerpt:

In yet another indication of the toll the recession has taken on the United States, usage of Mormon storehouses is up by an estimated 30 percent, according to church officials in Utah and Massachusetts.

“A lot of people are proud and ashamed they need help,’’ said Gregory Hill, 39, of Springfield, who has been unemployed since being laid off as a DHL delivery driver last November, and who on a recent day drove the 45 minutes to Worcester to pick up free supplies for his family of four. “But nobody’s hiring.’’

Check out the video, by Globe photographer Suzanne Kreiter, above.

For those of us who love maps, Gallup today has put out a nifty set illustrating the differential religious makeup of the American states. The maps are based on new data -- survey research conducted earlier this year -- but there's no big news here: the Northeast is the most Catholic region, the South the most Protestant, Utah the most Mormon and New York the most Jewish. And the Pacific Northwest and northern New England have the biggest percentages of non-religious folks. Here is Gallup's analysis of what it calls a "remarkable pattern of religious dispersion in the U.S.,'' with an interesting unanswered question about Vermont:

"A good deal of the religious dispersion across the states is explainable by historical immigration patterns -- particularly the impact of the large waves of European Catholics and Jews who came through ports of entry in the Middle Atlantic states in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The geographic concentration of Mormons in and around Utah reflects the cross-country migration of that group in the mid-1800s from Illinois and other Eastern states to their new home. The fact that certain states like Oregon and Vermont consist disproportionately of residents with no religious identity is more difficult to explain, with hypotheses focusing on the particular and idiosyncratic cultures of those states and/or the migration of certain types of Americans to those states over the decades."

Here's the map about Catholicism:

And Protestantism:

FULL ENTRY

A pretty funny anecdote courtesy of McKay Coppins, the twentysomething blogger for MormonTimes:

"If Mormons had cocktail parties, I would probably tell this story at one: When my family lived in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney served as our stake president.

Yes, yes, THE Mitt Romney. It was, of course, before his stint at the Salt Lake City Olympics and his gubernatorial term.

One night, my parents were at Blockbuster and they happened to run into President Romney. They chatted for a bit, and my parents mentioned they were having trouble picking a movie to rent. Much to my parents' surprise, Mitt enthusiastically suggested the 1993 Mike Myers comedy, 'So I Married an Axe Murderer'."

Sadly, there are no more details about whether the Mittster is generally a fan of the Myers oeuvre, or just films about mariticide (that's husband-killing). I have to confess I've never seen "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (should I add it to my Netflix list?) but I was pretty sure it's not a slasher film, given Mitt's faith-based aversion to R-rated films (he told me in 2007 that, although he has seen an occasional R-rated film, at Bain he had passed up an entertainment industry investment because "I did not want to be associated with making R-rated movies or selling R-rated movies"). But, despite its title, "Axe Murderer" is harmless. I looked it up. It's rated PG-13.

Last week I met with some of the local Mormon public affairs folks -- volunteers who are tapped by the church to help out with press work, among other things -- to talk about what's happening locally in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We talked about a range of subjects, among them the three construction projects that the church is working on in Greater Boston -- the construction of a new stake center in East Cambridge (above), the rebuilding of a burned-down chapel near Harvard Square, and the planned construction of a new chapel in Brookline. Here's a detailed update:

The 36,000-square-foot Cambridge Stake Center, under construction in Kendall Square, is the largest of the projects, and will house three congregations (called wards) as well as the administrative headquarters for 14 Mormon congregations north of the Charles River (the group of congregations is called a stake, which is akin to a diocese). On July 13, there was a "topping-off" ceremony at the site, at Rogers and Second Streets, marking the completion of the steel structure; the building is expected to be finished and to open next May, according to Grant Bennett, the spokesman for the Cambridge stake.

The Longfellow Park chapel, which was essentially destroyed in a fire in May, will be rebuilt over about 18 months, Bennett said. He said the building will look much as it did before on the outside, but that the interior will be modernized. (Some details from a follow-up e-mail from Bennett: "The rebuilt Longfellow Park building will have the same appearance externally, except there will be an emergency exit added on the gym and a handicap accessibility ramp at or near the front entrance. Inside, the building will be very similar to what was in place before the fire. The building will have an elevator to provide handicap access to all three floors. The building will continue to be the home for the Longfellow Park First and Second Wards, the University Ward and the Institute of Religion.") He said the fire was not arson (a concern because a Mormon chapel in Belmont had once been torched by an arsonist) but instead was apparently caused by some kind of electrical problem related to squirrels. The three congregations that worshiped there are now using space offered to them by the nearby Episcopal Divinity School.

The project in Brookline, on land along Route 9, is on the slowest track, because of neighborhood opposition. Julie Berry, the spokeswoman for the Boston stake, e-mails: "We're still planning to build a chapel in Brookline. We're in an 18-month stay that expires in November, and can't start construction until that point. We've been consulting with Finegold & Alexander, Boston-based architects, as well as Burt, Hill, regarding the design of the chapel, though no final designs have yet been announced. That's about the extent of it."

Finally, Bennett mentioned that the church also owns land in Woburn, where it may build a chapel at some time in the future, but nothing has been planned at this point.

(By the way, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has just posted a statistical portrait of Mormons in the U.S. on its web site.)

(Image courtesy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

President Obama today met with the top Mormon church official in the country, Thomas S. Monson, whose title is president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and who is revered by Mormons as prophet, seer and revelator. Monson was accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is also a Mormon.

Here is the statement from the church:

"President Barack Obama was presented with five large leather-bound volumes today by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that detail his family history going back multiple generations covering hundreds of years. The presentation was made by Church President Thomas S. Monson and Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. They were accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who is also a member of the Church.

President Monson said: 'President Obama’s heritage is rich with examples of leadership, sacrifice and service. We were very pleased to research his family history and are honored to present it to him today.'

Elder Oaks, who oversees the Church’s family history program, said, 'The Church has great resources and experience in genealogy work, and we are proud to have researched such a unique and impressive family history.'

'I thank President Monson and Elder Oaks for sharing our religion’s tradition of genealogical research with the president and his family,' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 'I am also glad that President Obama and Elder Oaks had an opportunity to discuss their shared passion of the law. Recognizing the president and first lady's deep regard for family, I am honored that our church can have any part in documenting their family history.'

The Church has also presented personal histories to other U.S. presidents, including Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton."

Here is the statement from the White House:

"The President issued the following statement after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and leaders of the LDS Church at the White House today: 'I enjoyed my meeting with President Monson and Elder Oaks. I'm grateful for the genealogical records that they brought with them and am looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters. It's something our family will treasure for years to come.'"

And here is coverage from the Salt Lake Tribune.

(Photo, by Pete Souza of the White House, shows President Barack Obama reviewing geneaological records with (from left) Senator Harry Reid; Joshua DuBois, Director of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; LDS Church President Thomas Monson and LDS Elder Dallin Oaks in the Oval Office, July 20, 2009.)

Mormons around the country today are grieving the destruction of a well-known LDS meetinghouse in Cambridge that many encountered as grad students at Harvard or MIT. The meetinghouse, in Longfellow Park, caught fire this morning, while local Mormons were gathered there to watch the satellite broadcast of a meeting being held in Salt Lake City. Everyone was safely evacuated, and the cause of the fire is unknown.

The Globe will have a detailed story Monday, but Boston.com now has the breaking news about the fire, as well as a photo gallery.

Whitney Johnson, an active Mormon who has helped the church regionally with public affairs, e-mailed, "Longfellow Chapel has been an important place of worship in the Mormon community, especially for those who have come for school at MIT or Harvard, and have now gone. These people will always remember the Longfellow Park Chapel, the place where they worshiped each Sunday, as their sacred place in Boston."

There is a nostalgic conversation taking place among folks who spent time at the Cambridge meetinghouse over at By Common Consent, and there is also commentary in the Bloggernacle at Mormonism Unveiled and at Faith-Promoting Rumor and My Imaginary Blog. Also, Antonio Rodriguez has posted photos of the LDS meetinghouse fire, and WBUR has video of the Cambridge meetinghouse fire.

(Photos by George Rizer/Globe staff.)

Did Mitt Romney lose the GOP nomination in 2008 because he is a Mormon? It appears that RNC chairman Michael Steele (above) thinks so.

"It was the base that rejected Mitt because it had issues with Mormonism," Steele said on a radio program Friday, in which he also cited Romney's about-face on abortion.

Romney objected, and Steele apologized. But was he right?

Over at Spiritual Politics, Mark Silk blogs, "Michael Steele has apologized to Mitt Romney for telling the truth about his candidacy."

And at God & Country, Dan Gilgoff blogs, "It's bad form to accuse the GOP base of being anti-Mormon, not to mention telling someone that his religion is a political impediment. But Steele's analysis strikes me as pretty solid."

(Photo above, by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images, shows RNC Chairman Michael Steele arriving at the 2009 White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington on May 9, 2009.)

The semi-annual Mormon General Conference, which began here in Salt Lake City today and runs through Sunday, is like nothing I’ve ever seen – about 20,000 people at each of five two-hour sessions, sitting quietly in their Sunday best listening to a string of earnest motivational talks from church leaders interspersed with hymns from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I’ve been in Utah since Tuesday, primarily to give a speech at Utah Valley University, but also reporting a few stories that will appear in the paper in the coming weeks. But on the way, I’ve had a chance to do some journalistic tourism of Mormondom, and it’s been an eye-opener – I visited Welfare Square and Temple Square, spent time with the aforementioned choir, and got a chance to talk with a lot of Mormons inside and outside the church administration.

In Orem, where I spent two days at UVU’s ninth annual Mormon Studies conference, I was struck by the ideological diversity within a faith that often seems to lack much, despite its growth around the world. There was almost no ethnic diversity, but the crowd of students and faculty and area residents who came to the conference included the publisher of a Mormon anarchist journal (who knew?) as well as a polygamy advocate (polygamy is grounds for automatic excommunication in Mormonism), and a variety of bloggers and opinion makers who span the political spectrum.

Friday morning, two Mormons on the margins spoke, including a legal scholar from southern California who had opposed Proposition 8, the church-backed measure to ban same-sex marriage in that state, and a UVU Mormon studies professor who ran a quixotic, and unsuccessful, campaign for the Utah state Legislature as a Democrat in a solidly Republican area. Both spoke about the consequences for lack of conformity.

Salt Lake City was buzzing with the anticipation of this weekend’s general conference, which Mormons around the world watch on TV or the Internet. I spent some time this morning with the dozens of volunteer translators, who simultaneously interpret the conference into 79 languages for broadcast around the world. I also met a pair of sisters from San Diego who travel to Salt Lake City twice a year, sometimes without tickets, just hoping they’ll find a way to get a seat in the gigantic conference center to hear their leaders speak. Outside the conference, a handful of protesters shouted and held signs with anti-Mormon slogans; the sidewalks near the protesters were lined with young Mormons singing hymns.

The conference highlight, for Mormons, was the announcement of a new apostle, Neil L. Andersen, a Harvard Business School graduate who was “sustained” by the assembly without a single 'no' vote visible among the 17,000 people in the room.

Andersen later choked up several times when talking to the press – Mormons are often quite emotional when describing their faith – saying “I pray that I may become what I must become.’’

(Photo, by George Frey/Getty Images, shows the Mormon General Conference today in Salt Lake City.)

I flew out to Utah at the invitation of Utah Valley University’s religious studies program, which asked me to speak about what it’s like to write about Mormonism as a religion reporter who does not live in a heavily Mormon part of the country. My talk, delivered Thursday morning, was titled, “Far from Zion: Meeting Mormonism on the Religion Beat.’’ I spoke at some length about my experience interacting with the church’s members and officials for a number of stories over the last decade, but I focused on my experience covering the controversy over the construction of a Mormon temple in Belmont, and then writing about the faith of Mitt Romney. The speech was too long to post here, but here are some of my concluding observations:

"First, and this will come as no surprise to anyone in this room, Mormonism is a subject of considerable controversy, and there is quite a bit of animosity toward Mormonism in the broader culture. This is not unique – Catholicism and Islam attract quite a bit of vitriol too – but it is striking. Blogging gives me a particularly direct read on how readers, especially those at the ideological poles, react to certain subjects, and items about Mormons reliably generate a large number of comments, many of them critical of the church. I had a recent view of this when I posted a blog item about Rachel Esplin, a 20-year-old Harvard student from Idaho who attracted a bit of attention when a video of her explaining her LDS faith went viral, as they say. The on-line discussion, as often happens, had little to do with Rachel or her video; instead, it went on for several hundred comments that, when boiled down, were basically a debate over whether Mormonism is good or bad. The criticism seems to come from two camps – ex-Mormons, who are sharply critical of the church on theological or historical grounds, and non-Mormons, who tend to be critical on political grounds. The ex-Mormons tend to dispute the plausibility of Joseph Smith’s revelations, to contest various elements of Mormon cosmology, or to cite problematic quotations from church writings over the years; the non-Mormons tend to focus on the role of the church in the public square and often cite concerns about the church’s attitudes on race, gender, and, especially in the wake of Proposition 8, sexual orientation.

I know we’ll be spending a lot of time over the next day and a half talking about why there is so much antipathy toward Mormonism in the culture. Gary Lawrence seems to argue that the problem is due largely to misunderstanding, ignorance, or poor communication. But I think there are multiple other factors worth thinking about. There is the otherness of Mormons, which Mormons seem simultaneously to cherish and resent. There is the relative isolation -- Mormons are still unusually geographically concentrated for an American religious group, and the sense of tribalism runs deep, which means even in the rest of the country they can live within but apart from the broader culture. There is the fact that Mormons are competing, particularly with other Christian denominations, for new members around the world. And finally, of course, there is the most obvious, but difficult, possible explanation for the animosity, which is that it could be based on actual substantive objections to Mormon beliefs, practices, lifestyles and political behavior – not misunderstandings, but real disagreement. These are tougher to grapple with, obviously, but I think a candid assessment of how Mormons are perceived in the broad culture needs to tackle these questions head on.

OK, so my first point was that Mormons are controversial. My second point is a corollary: Mormons are unusually attentive to how they are portrayed in the news media as well as popular culture. No other faith group is as quick to respond to coverage, and some of that response, which is striking in such a top-down faith, seems to come from the bottom up. I get e-mails from random Mormons around the world about an obituary or a groundbreaking, and now, on my blog and I assume many others, there seems to be a large cadre of self-appointed Mormon cyberapologists, who inevitably show up to defend their faith against critics. You might argue that every faith group in America, with the possible exception of the mainline Protestants, has a persecution complex of sorts, but I’d say that at the moment, Mormons and Muslims are most vexed by what they believe are unfair portrayals in the media.

Third, communication strategy by the Mormon church appears to be quite centralized and controlled. It was striking, in the summer of 2007, when I started calling Mormons in France, how quickly public affairs officials in Salt Lake were notified – I think the individual Mormons asked their bishops if they could talk to an American reporter, and the bishops asked the stake presidents, and up it went. That does not happen in any other faith that I cover. Last year, when I was working on a piece exploring the degree of dissent within Mormonism over Proposition 8, I quickly got the impression that Salt Lake had discouraged some folks from talking to me because of they held some kind of official church title, although ultimately numerous Mormons were happy to talk, and Salt Lake cooperated with the story. In some ways, Mormonism resembles Catholicism, in that both are centralized, hierarchical organizations, with clearly spelled out teachings on a variety of theological and political issues. But, as I think these examples make clear, the Mormon Church is much more centralized and efficient about its messaging, and that, I think, has obvious pros and cons.

Fourth, it seems to me that there is, at this point, at least a cultural uncertainty within Mormonism about how far an individual Latter-day Saint can go in publicly disputing, or even questioning, a position of church officials. That uncertainty, at least in my experience, can have a chilling effect on openness, although my impression is that the conformity of political speech by Mormons is slowly lessening, either intentionally or unintentionally, in the wake of the Romney campaign and Proposition 8. But there’s clearly a tension within Mormonism about what kinds of opinions are OK to voice publicly. I have a few theories about what’s happening. It seems to me, as an outsider, that Mormonism places a fairly high premium on conformity, as well as on community. There can be religious consequences for stepping out of bounds – I’m thinking about people who have been excommunicated, or disfellowshipped, or denied that diploma at BYU – but there can also be social consequences for non-conformity, which, in a culture that places such a high premium on community, can be chilling as well. I think the lack of an ordained clergy is a complicating factor, because it seems to make it harder to define who is speaking officially for the church and who is speaking as an individual – if everyone really has a calling, and those callings constantly change, which people are speaking for themselves and which for their church? Another way of thinking about that is that there seems to be less distance between the institutional church and its members in Mormonism than in other religions, so it is harder for insiders and outsiders to distinguish the significance of actions and opinions of individual Mormons, and that’s a prickly issue at a time when there’s a sensitivity about the political involvement of churches.

Finally, there’s no question Mormons are nicer when dealing with reporters. I suppose it goes without saying that no one in public affairs for the church has sworn at me, which is a treat, but I also can’t recall anyone who has hung up on me, although I’ve certainly had some unreturned calls. But it goes beyond politeness. I’ve been at this for a decade, and the Boston area includes several stakes, so I’ve dealt with a lot of public affairs folks over the years, and to a person they’ve been warm. But it also seems to me, and I don’t know whether this reflects a change in policy or just luck of the draw, that in recent years the individuals tapped for the public affairs calling have gotten sharper and bolder, have thought more critically about the church’s engagement with the media, and have enjoyed slightly greater autonomy from Salt Lake City. Their power, of course, is limited – on anything with real policy implications, Salt Lake steps in, and people there are both sophisticated and vigilant -- generally decent and responsive, but you can sometimes feel the ways in which they are hamstrung by the conservative impulses of the bureaucracy."

After I spoke, and fielded questions, I also joined a panel discussion about Mormonism and the media with Salt Lake City-based reporters Lynn Arave of the Deseret News, Jennifer Dobner of the Associated Press, and Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune. Peggy made an obvious but important observation about my experience, noting that a religion reporter’s relationship with a religion is generally more freighted when it is more frequent. So my relationship with Mormon public affairs is arguably easier than that of the Utah-based reporters, but my relationship with Catholic communicators is considerably more complicated.

The discussions of Mormonism and the media were covered in the Deseret News, and by a handful of bloggers, including Shalyn Schumann and the MormonTimes.

By the way, UVU is an interesting story – a former community college with no on-campus housing and open enrollment, it now has 27,000 students and aspires to grow as big as 40,000 as the population in the area booms. College officials told me they are benefiting from nearby Brigham Young University’s decision to cap its enrollment – Mormon families who want their kids to have a BYU-like experience, and ideally to meet a Mormon spouse, are turning to UVU (a state school) as an alternative when BYU (which is church-owned) doesn’t work out.

Greetings from Orem, Utah, where I'm attending a conference on "Mormonism in the Public Mind" at Utah Valley University. I'm here because I was the keynote speaker yesterday, talking about Mormonism and the media, and I'll have more to say about that, and some of my travels through Mormondom this week, a bit later. But first, some liveblogging.

This morning, a panel of three scholars took a look at Mormonism and politics, trying to extract lessons from three episodes -- the Romney campaign for president, the Proposition 8 campaign in California, and the quixotic campaign of a Utah Valley University professor, an active Mormon, who ran for the state Legislature as a Democrat in one of the most Republican areas of the country.

Boyd Petersen, the program coordinator for Mormon Studies at Utah Valley University, talked about his unsuccessful bid for the Utah Legislature, and what he learned about the close association between Mormons and the Republican Party. "Last year, I did something no sane person would do -- I ran for the state Legislature in Utah County as a Democrat -- one of the reddest county in one of the reddest states.'' Petersen described himself as "a socially conservative Democrat,'' and said his "most radical position" was that he opposed school vouchers. But what's it like to be a Mormon Democrat? This is what Petersen said:

"Many Mormon Democrats, such as me, experience frustration that we're not fully accepted into the Mormon Church tribe...Many of our fellow church members see us as apostates...Utah Mormons still ask the question, 'Can a good Mormon be a Democrat?' At times we progressive Mormons feel like we're not just a different tribe, but we're living on separate planets. The gap that divides us can seem quite unfathomable.''

Petersen argued that the strong association between Mormonism and Republicanism is not healthy for the religion, because political parties take members for granted. "Republicans know they have it in the bag, and Democrats know they don't have a chance,'' he said. Furthermore, he said, "I have known many students who have left the church because they felt excluded for progressive beliefs.''

Morris Thurston, a Mormon legal historian in southern California, talked about his experience as an active church participant who also opposed Proposition 8, the measure approved by California voters to outlaw same-sex marriage in that state. Thurston, who publicly attempted to rebut arguments in favor of Proposition 8, said that although some Mormons praised him, others "condemned me to hell for defying the prophet.'' He said there was an article in a Mormon publication that "likened those who opposed Prop. 8 to Lucifer," and said a leader in his own ward described "dissenters...like the wicked and adulterous people of Noah's Day." The campaign "was very stressful for me, and the negativity took its emotional toll,'' he said, adding, "it's difficult to be seen as a heretic.''

Thurston said he observed a very heavy involvement by the Mormon church in advocating for Proposition 8, citing meetings held in ward and stake buildings, conversations in which bishops urged members to become more active, talks in sacrament, priesthood and relief society meetings, and even commentary in fast day testimonies. "It would be difficult to understate the effectiveness of the LDS campaign,'' he said, citing doorbelling efforts, sign-holding, and election day efforts to get voters to the polls in support of Proposition 8. By contrast, he said, "the organizers of 'No on 8' came across as rank amateurs.'' Then, provocatively, Thurston noted that Brigham Young had supported slavery and opposed interracial relationships, and said, "continuing revelation sometimes results in leaders accepting conduct that earlier leaders have condemned, or condemning conduct that earlier leaders held sacred.'' Musing about the future of Mormon attitudes toward same-sex marriage, he said, "Is it possible revelation will be perceived that will change our attitudes towards our gay brothers and sisters?"

Taking a look at a different political issue, and from a different perspective, Kirk Jowers, the director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, examined the question of whether Romney's religion cost him the presidency -- an issue other scholars are also trying to evaluate. Jowers did not offer a conclusion, and did not discuss other problems with the Romney campaign, but made it clear that he believes anti-Mormonism was a key factor in Romney's disappointing performance in Iowa, which led rapidly to his withdrawal from the race. Jowers reviewed an array of anti-Mormon comments made during Romney's candidacy, and said, "religion was a critical part of his campaign...it was very difficult for him to just get a clear run.'' Jowers also said "that soft bigotry was put down with the hammer in Iowa" and "there's a great argument to be made that he lost Iowa due to his religion.''

A 20-year-old Harvard junior from Idaho has captured the attention of Mormondom with the slow viral spread of a six-month-old video (above) in which she explains her faith to journalist Sally Quinn.

The bloggernacle, as Mormon wags call the extensive network of Mormon bloggers, is abuzz over Rachel Esplin's poised handling of a series of questions about whether she wears sacred undergarments, how she responds to allegations that Mormonism is a cult, how she views the role of women in her church, and what her relationship is with Jesus. "For more than 20 minutes, Rachel's delivery was as unstoppable as the incoming tide,'' gushed MormonTimes. "What is fascinating about this video is the aplomb with which Rachel answers the questions,'' writes Krista at Glass Half Full. "I feel very inadequate now!" blogged Chels of the McGees. And Mark Towner, who blogs as The Captains Spyglass, called the video, "Something every Latter Day Saint Member needs to watch and contemplate."

The video is not exactly a clip from the Colbert Report or the Daily Show -- it's 21 minutes long, without a joke in sight. But the video appears to have captured the attention of Mormons, who tend to be highly attentive to and concerned about how they are perceived in the broader culture. The fascination seems to be in part because of Esplin's youth, and in part because she is at Harvard, which, of course, remains a symbol of the mainstream elite.

Esplin, from Blackfoot, Idaho, is the president of the Harvard Latter-day Saint Student Association. She is also an East Asian Studies major who is planning to get married this summer and expects to graduate in December; she hopes eventually to go to law school. Earlier today I called her to ask her about the video, which is posted on the web site of Harvard Hillel, where the panel on which Esplin appeared took place. Here's a partial transcript of our conversation:

Q: What has happened since the video was posted in September?
A: It's been pretty crazy. I didn't even send it to my family members, but my mom found it by Googling my name, and it just started getting e-mailed around. Some BYU professors started showing it and forwarding it, and then a lot of people told me they watched it in seminary or at family home evening.

Q: Why do you think people are so interested in this particular video?
A: I think people latched onto the fact that I'm 20, and haven't been on mission, and haven't been to the temple yet. And I think Harvard is part of it -- there's a significant LDS presence here, with 50 undergrads, and 50 or 60 at the law school, and some at the business school -- and Mormons have a history at Harvard back to the late 1800s, and a couple of our apostles went to Harvard, so in addition to Harvard being Harvard in the world at large, in the LDS community it has a particular significance.

Q: How has this impacted you?
A: It has been a really strange feeling. I know interfaith discussions like this are happening all over, so it's strange that mine has become so popular, and it's something it didn't necessarily merit. But it's helped me realize that doing things like this, and finding ways to encourage others to do so, is significant. Last spring I organized a "Meet the Mormons" panel at Harvard, and it was a good event, and now I'm working with the LDS Association president at MIT to help other schools do similar events.

Q: What's the goal?
A: There are a few different goals. We believe it's just a good way to show our religion, to show we love everyone, and that we're interested in learning about other people and hope others will learn about us. And this was born out of a time when our religion was in the news a lot, with Mitt Romney and other factors -- a lot is written about us in the media, and it's not all true, so there's a desire to clarify misconceptions. And then, I guess I believe in the idea that one of the best ways to help build our church is to establish friends who are not in the church.

In today's Globe, I have a story about the emergence of a number of Mormon authors of literature for young adults (middle and high school age kids). An excerpt:

MAYNARD _ Julie Berry's first novel is a fairy tale with a prince and a witch and love and despair. But there's no swearing, and no sex. The novel is, she grudgingly admits, wholesome.

And that's what links Berry, of Maynard, and other Mormon writers, many of them young women, who are surging into the genre of young adult literature, finding a happy marriage between the expectations of their religion and the desires of a burgeoning publishing niche.

The most famous among them, of course, is Stephenie Meyer, a practicing Mormon from Arizona whose "Twilight" series, about a teenage girl who has a no-sex-before-marriage relationship with a dreamy adolescent vampire, has sold an astonishing 28 million books and spawned a film that has already grossed $188 million.

None of the other Mormon authors has achieved that kind of success, but Shannon Hale's "Princess Academy" was a New York Times bestseller and a Newbery Honor Winner, and the success of "Twilight," as well as the Harry Potter series, by non-Mormon writer J.K. Rowling, is clearly spurring new interest in fiction for teenagers.

That Mormon writers have come to loom large in an increasingly popular literary genre can be linked to several unique characteristics of their faith and culture: an aversion to the sex and swearing that prevails in adult fiction, a propensity for large families that often means a child-focused life, and an affinity for fantasy writing.

(Photo, by Bill Greene of the Globe staff, shows author Julie Berry talking with a group of girl scouts at Christ Church Wellesley on Feb. 27, 2009.)

Times & Seasons, one of the major Mormon blogs, has named former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Mormon of the Year for 2008. Not a big surprise, given his candidacy for the presidency. In fact, a colleague of mine asked who the other contenders might be, and all I could think of were Stephenie Meyer (the author of the "Twilight" series) and David Archuleta (the "American Idol" runner-up). It turns out that they, plus Romney, were three of the five candidates; the other two were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and JetBlue founder David Neeleman. Here's the explanation from Times & Seasons:

"During 2008 Romney concluded the most credible presidential campaign of any Mormon to date and dominated the U.S. national news early in the year like no single Mormon has in recent memory. He garnered a great deal of both praise and criticism, gaining him significant endorsements as well as important detractors. Remarkably, his supporters included many Evangelical Christians, which helped break down the unfortunate views of some Evangelicals toward Mormons. Also on the international scene, numerous press articles mentioned Romney’s membership in the Mormon Church, thus contributing to the image of the Church abroad.

Romney was not merely a very visible Mormon, however; his Mormonism was a major influence on the course of his campaign, in both positive and negative ways. Many called for Romney to distance himself from his religion, as JFK had done many years earlier. Instead, Romney responded by articulating the values he shares with many other Americans, which his faith supports, and by articulating the importance of all faiths in the life of the nation. Romney’s public image was inextricably tied to his Mormon beliefs, and this faith, which drove a myriad of storylines, appeared to contribute to the unease with him as a candidate, helping to derail his presidential hopes."

(Photo, by Alex Wong/Getty, shows Romney during a taping of "Meet the Press" at the NBC studios in Washington on 12/14/08.)

It’s that time of year again – list time. Actually, it’s way past list time. The Religion Newswriters Association issued their list of the top ten religion stories of the year weeks ago – of course, as a result, they missed the Madoff scandal, the Rick Warren/invocation controversy, and the Gaza assault. Revealer issued lists of the year's best religion writing and the year's best religion books and movies. Altmuslim offered a list of the top ten good news stories of the year. And Religion Dispatches has a list of the top ten year-end religion news lists, including those from Time, Christianity Today, and the Onion.

For this first new year of this new blog, I’m going to offer ten reflections about religion news and the year gone by, with a few anticipatory remarks thrown in as well. This is just a sampling; feel free to suggest other topics in the comments field.

1. The year that is ending was marked, in particular, by the multiple battles for the hearts and minds of religious Americans in the presidential campaign. There was often less there than met the eye – evangelicals continued to vote in large numbers for the Republican Party, despite vigorous efforts to lure them away by Democrats, and Jews continued to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, despite an unending whispering campaign on the Internet attempting to associate Obama with Islam and critics of Israel. Mitt Romney’s much-anticipated speech on faith and public life was probably not a turning point in American political thinking. Social issues played only a minor role in a campaign dominated first by Iraq and then by the economy. And, to the extent that religion was part of the political story, it was almost always as something to criticize or mock – the preaching of Wright, Hagee and Pfleger, the beliefs and practices of Palin and Romney, the middle name of Obama, the politics of Warren.

2. As the new year begins, it appears that the biggest story for all religions is likely to be the economy, which will increase demand on religious organizations for solace and assistance at the same time that it depletes their endowments and threatens their fundraising.

3. In the Catholic Church, the biggest news of 2008 was the successful visit to the United States of Pope Benedict XVI, who benefitted enormously from low expectations and won high marks for his decision to meet in Washington with five Bostonians who had been sexually abused by priests. That meeting was put together by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who passed (without celebration) five eventful years as archbishop of Boston, seemingly settling into his role after surviving multiple controversies, moving the church’s longtime headquarters from Brighton to Braintree, completing a reshaping of his administrative team, improving the archdiocese’s grim financial picture and rescuing St. John’s Seminary from the brink of death. But O’Malley still faces enormous challenges; the diocese still spends more each year than it raises; five closed parishes remain occupied (for more than four years now!) by protesters; and the diocese’s accounts for clergy pensions and benefits are seriously underfunded. And the church remains, particularly in Massachusetts, at odds with the political culture, particularly over abortion and gay rights. So in 2009, I'll be watching how O’Malley handles the vigils and the pension funds; what he does to address the increasing priest shortage, most likely by asking more priests to oversee multiple parishes like the circuit riders of old; and how he manages critiquing a presidential administration supported by the vast majority of his parishioners. For the pope, a highlight of 2009 is expected to be a May visit to Israel, but that trip could be postponed or cancelled if the violence there continues.

4. Mainline Protestant denominations continued to be roiled by debates over homosexuality, and continued to grapple with declining participation and aging congregations. The split in the global Anglican Communion since the election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire began to formalize in 2008, as conservatives announced that they were establishing a separate North American province that would compete with the existing Episcopal Church in the U.S. and Canada. African American Protestant churches reflected on the state of black liberation theology after the incendiary preaching by Jeremiah Wright (a pastor in the mainline United Church of Christ) called attention to the risks of rhetoric in the age of Youtube.

5. The evangelical Protestant world was in the spotlight throughout the election, as the Democratic Party attempted, with little measurable success, to break the strong relationship between evangelicalism and Republicanism. But evangelical politics are clearly in flux – polls show younger evangelicals interested in a broader array of issues than their elders. And the tension was on display in awkward ways; the National Association of Evangelicals ousted a longtime long official, Rich Cizik, whose open attitude toward global warming and gay relationships caused some on the right to question his orthodoxy. And the flap over Obama's choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation reminded both evangelicals and Democrats that engagement between the two will be fraught with complexity.

6. For the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2008 brought an end to the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose candidacy went further than that of any of the Mormons who have previously sought the nation’s highest office, but also called attention to a deep streak of anti-Mormonism in American culture, particularly among evangelical Protestants. The year also saw Mormons in the midst of a controversy over Proposition 8, the measure that would overturn same-sex marriage in California. Mormons, acting at their church’s urging, gave millions to the campaign, and the church was targeted by protesters after the measure passed. Locally, Mormons continued their institutional growth in eastern Massachusetts; eight years after building a huge temple on Belmont Hill, the LDS church this year broke ground for a new stake center in East Cambridge and announced plans to build a new chapel (being contested by neighbors) in Brookline.

7. For Jews, much of the year’s biggest news was concentrated at the end of the year, as multiple Jewish foundations and individuals lost millions of dollars in the alleged Ponzi scheme overseen by one of the community’s own; an investor named Bernard L. Madoff. And the Israeli assault on Gaza, in response to Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, brought renewed attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to significant concern about Israel’s conduct by a variety of governments and groups. There was also the immigration raid on the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, which has intensified a growing discussion about what relationship, if any, there should be between ethics and kashrut. Locally, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies offered a new plan for the Jewish community, which, as it turns out, called for intensified defense of Israel; the Jewish community locally also decided to close its community center on the South Shore. In 2009, watch for a potential consolidation of Jewish nonprofits as the economy and the Madoff scandal take their toll, and also keep an eye on how the Jewish community manages interfaith relations given the increasing criticism of Israel from other faith groups.

8. For Muslims, the year brought ongoing tension over the place of Islam in the West, as American Muslims continued to make incremental political gains, but were largely ignored by an Obama campaign wary of associating with an unpopular group. The use of terror by some Muslims – most recently the attacks in Mumbai – continues to pose a challenge to those who proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace. The Middle East crisis also looms large for American Muslims, who are attempting to persuade American policymakers to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza. Many Muslims seized as a sign of hope Colin Powell’s denunciation, on Meet the Press, of the idea that there is something wrong with being a Muslim. And in Boston, 2008 brought the soft opening of the much-debated and long-delayed new Islamic Cultural Center in Roxbury, which is expected to fully open in 2009.

9. There were several notable deaths in the world of religion in 2008. Cardinal Avery Dulles, the scion of a famous, and Protestant, American family, who came to Catholicism by the banks of the Charles River, and who became the only American theologian ever named a cardinal by Rome, died in December at 90. Gordon Hinckley, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, revered by Mormons as prophet, seer and revelator, and a descendant of the last governor of Plymouth Colony, died in January at 97. Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexy II died in December at 79; Warith Deen Mohammed, the African-American Muslim leader, died in September at 74.

10. The business of religion journalism, like the rest of the journalism business, is, to put it mildly, in flux. The amount of space and resources committed to religion journalism by the mainstream media continued to dwindle in 2008, and several veteran religion writers around the country were laid off or bought out.

At the Globe, the powers-that-be retired the paper’s longtime religion column, Spiritual Life, as part of a budget-cutting effort, and launched this blog, Articles of Faith, in an effort to better engage with that segment of our growing on-line audience that is interested in religion. The blog has grown rapidly – thanks to Sarah Palin, the abortion issue, and a variety of other controversies, we had nearly 200,000 page views in November. I am grateful to all of you (well, most of you) who visited, bookmarked the site, subscribed to the RSS feed, and took the time to post comments or send notes as I experiment with this forum, trying to figure out what features and what types of posts are most useful, how best to balance the kinds of hot-button items that generate clicks with posts about news and culture that can be traffic-deadening, and also how best to balance blogging with reporting and writing stories.

This will almost certainly be my last blog post of the year; I’ve just arrived in California for a vacation, and, if the news and my own temperament allow me to tear myself away from the keyboard, Articles of Faith will be on hiatus for a bit. But please feel free to post your own thoughts about trends in the world of religion as comments on this blog, or shoot me an e-mail with suggestions for religion stories you think the Globe should pursue in 2009.

And, to one and all, Happy New Year.

(Photo, by Lai Seng Sin/AP, shows a New Year's celebration today in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.)

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based law firm that often comes at religious freedom issues from a conservative vantage point, has called further attention to the tension between religious freedom and gay rights in the aftermath of the passage of California Proposition 8. The measure would, if upheld by the courts, overturn same-sex marriage in California; its passage has been greeted with multiple protests, often targetting the Mormon church, by same-sex marriage advocates critical of the role of conservative churches in the campaign. The Becket Fund ran a full-page ad in Friday's New York Times touting a new organization called "No Mob Veto'' and inviting supporters to sign a petition. In a news release, the Becket Fund decried not only "anti-religious protests" but also "homosexual intimidation" -- the ad itself used more temperate language, arguing that criticism is acceptable but that "anti-religious propaganda" is wrong. An excerpt:

"The violence and intimidation being directed at the LDS or 'Mormon' church, and other religious organizations -- even against individual believers – simply because they supported Proposition 8 is an outrage and must stop."

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a gay rights organization, immediately denounced the ad as "untruthful,'' and issued a series of statements from religious leaders who support gay marriage, including this comment from the Rev. Susan Russell, who is the president of Integrity, a gay rights organization in the Episcopal Church:

“Several signatories to the ad are generals in the culture wars. They lied about gay people in the campaign, and now they are lying again when they say we are in favor of mob intimidation and violence. I personally talked legitimately angry demonstrators in California out of such action and every credible LGBT organization called for peaceful resistance to the Prop 8 travesty. Many of the leaders cited in this ad preach hate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, then look the other way when LGBT people are the victims of hate crimes. This ad is an act of individual and corporate hypocrisy.”

And the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal organization, said:

"While I wholeheartedly disagree with the position of the LDS church on proposition 8, I agree with the signers of the ad that they have every right to their opinion. I do wonder if the signers will be willing to spend tens-of-thousands of dollars along with their prestige the next time a primarily gay congregation’s legitimacy is called in to question, or a mosque is targeted for harassment."

(Photo, by Max Whittaker/Getty, shows a demonstration on the steps of the California State House in Sacramento on Nov. 22.)

The latest development in the discussion of the role of religion in the passage of California's Proposition 8, the measure that would overturn same-sex marriage in that state, is a comic musical video, made by advocates of gay marriage, that imagines Jesus (played by actor Jack Black) singing in support of gay rights. Obviously, this video comes from one side in a highly contested debate over what Christianity has to say about homosexuality. The video features not only Jack Black, but also Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Margaret Cho, Rashida Jones.

AP Entertainment writer Jake Coyle reports, "The video was posted Wednesday on FunnyOrDie.com, the video site co-founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay...The video was conceived and written by Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer of "Hairspray" and "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." McKay, who had previously collaborated with Shaiman on the song-and-dance routine Ferrell, Black and Reilly did at the Oscars earlier this year, sent him an e-mail floating the idea of a video."

And over at ArtsBeat (The New York Times's arts blog), Dave Itzkoff has a Q&A with Shaiman about what Itzkoff calls a "comedic song-and-dance diatribe." Itzkoff also reports that "In just one day of online existence, the Funny Or Die video 'Prop 8­ — The Musical” has received more than 1.2 million hits'.''

Here's the video:

There's been a lot of other news on the faith-and-8 front. Some highlights:

In tomorrow's issue of Catholic San Francisco, Archbishop George H. Niederauer (left) defends the churches, including Catholics and Mormons, that supported Proposition 8, writing,

"Why was it done? Some voices in the wider community declare that there could be only one motive: hatred, prejudice and bigotry against gays, along with a determination to discriminate against them and deny them their civil rights. That is not so. The churches that worked in favor of Proposition 8 did so because of their belief that the traditional understanding and definition of marriage is in need of defense and support, and not in need of being re-designed or re-configured. Some of our opponents respond with this question: Even if these churches saw the California State Supreme Court decision in May as damaging to the institution of marriage as they understood and valued it, shouldn’t they have kept quiet and stayed on the sidelines? Some would say that, in light of the separation of church and state, churches should remain silent about any political matter. However, religious leaders in America have the constitutional right to speak out on issues of public policy. Catholic bishops, specifically, also have a responsibility to teach the faith, and our beliefs about marriage and family are part of this faith. Indeed, to insist that citizens be silent about their religious beliefs when they are participating in the public square is to go against the constant American political tradition. Such a gag order would have silenced many abolitionists in the nineteenth century and many civil rights advocates in the twentieth."

And the Public Policy Institute of California yesterday released new poll results finding that "Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in the state, drew its strongest support from evangelical Christians and Republicans.''

The New York Times editorial board today endorsed an investigation of whether the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints violated campaign finance laws with its enthusiastic support of Proposition 8 to roll back same-sex marriage in California. (The measure passed, but is now being challenged in the courts.) An excerpt:

"Based on the facts that have come out so far, the state is right to look into whether the church broke state laws by failing to report campaign-related expenditures...Churches, which risk their tax-exempt status if they endorse candidates, have more leeway in referendum campaigns. Still, when they enter the political fray, they have the same obligation to follow the rules that nonreligious groups do."

The California Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating the role of the Mormon church in the campaign in response to a complaint from Californians Against Hate, an organization supporting same-sex marriage, alleging that the Mormon church failed to report non-monetary contributions to the campaign. The Mormon church has posted explanations of its position, along with statements defending it, here.

Also, San Francisco Chronicle religion writer Matthai Kuruvila on Friday took a look at an argument by some supporters of same-sex marriage that the Mormon church and others should lose their tax-exempt status because of their advocacy work. The story suggests that such a move is highly unlikely. An excerpt:

"Interviews with experts and activists on the issue say Prop. 8 opponents should look elsewhere for reasons to criticize the measure's supporters. 'They almost certainly have not violated their tax exemption,' said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the leading advocacy organization on the issue. 'While the tax code has a zero tolerance for endorsements of candidates, the tax code gives wide latitude for churches to engage in discussions of policy matters and moral questions, including when posed as initiatives.' Generally speaking, churches, schools, and nonprofits that are 501c(3) organizations are prohibited from spending more than 20 percent of their budgets on political activities, Lynn said, noting that his organization is held to the same standard. The 20 percent threshold means that the Catholic or Mormon churches, whose organizations span the globe, would have had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars - if not billions - to violate their tax-exempt status."

(Photo, by Reed Saxon/AP, shows a gay marriage protest outside the LDS temple in Los Angeles on Nov. 12.)

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has just released a letter defending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has been repeatedly targeted for protest in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8, the California measure that would overturn same-sex marriage in that state. The Mormon church urged its members to contribute money and time to help pass the measure, and many did; the Catholic church also supported the measure, which is now being contested in the California courts.

Here is the letter, which was sent Nov. 21 from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz (left) of Louisville, who is the chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage, to Thomas S. Monson, president of the Mormon Church:

"Dear President Monson, On behalf of the members of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I am writing to express prayerful support and steadfast solidarity with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in view of recent events. We have watched with great distress in recent weeks as some members of society have reacted intemperately, and sometimes even violently, to the decision of the voters in support of Proposition 8 in California. We have been especially troubled by the reports of explicit and direct targeting of your church personnel and facilities as the objects of hostility and abuse. We pray that prudence and healing may prevail. The members of the Committee offer you our profound gratitude for your role in the broad alliance of faith communities and other people of good will who joined together to protect marriage, while at the same time, witnessing to the honor and respect due to every human person created in the image and likeness of God. Fraternally yours in Christ, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz"

The Mormon church has posted on its web site previous statements expressing concern about anti-Mormonism in the protests over Proposition 8; some of the statements are from groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, that opposed the referendum.

California is facing a measure that would restrict gay rights amidst a national debate over how the nation's legal framework should view homosexuality. The conservative religious community throws its muscle behind the proposition. And the gay community protests. Sound familiar?

That was the scenario not only this year, when California voters approved Proposition 8, which would overturn same-sex marriage, but also in 1978, when California voters rejected Proposition 6, which would have barred gay and lesbians from working in the schools.

The 1978 battle is at the heart of the new biopic, "Milk," which opens tomorrow, and which seems likely to intensify the focus on the tension between conservative religious congregations and gay rights advocates. The film is about the political career of Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist who was assassinated shortly after being elected to the San Francisco board of supervisors.

I saw the film at a screening last night, and the parallels drawn between 1978 and 2008 are unmistakable. In depicting the debate over Proposition 6, the so-called Briggs Initiative, the film focuses on the role of Anita Bryant in rallying conservative Protestant churches to support the measure.

Although the film has actors recreating most roles, it uses archival news footage of Bryant, as well as reports by Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite and others, to document the campaign. Bryant, who was affiliated with a conservative Southern Baptist congregation, is clearly situated in a religious context, and the film suggests that the debate over gay rights in the 1970s helped spur the political activism of the religious right. The film also places Milk's assassin, Dan White, in a deeply Catholic subculture -- a key scene in the film occurs at the christening of White's child, where Milk and White discuss gay rights, and White's wife suggests the topic is inappropriate in a church.

The dynamics on display in 1978 are, of course, echoed in the current debate over the role of the Mormon church, as well as Catholic, evangelical, African-American and Hispanic congregations, in supporting Proposition 8. In the three decades since the period depicted in the film, homosexuality has roiled many American denominations, with ceaseless battles over whether to ordain gays, whether to bless gay unions, and whether to support same-sex marriage. In response to the religious right, a religious left has emerged that is supportive of gay rights, so the debate now takes place not only between the religious and the nonreligious, but also within the world of religion. But the film offers a provocative look at one of the early acts in this still unfolding drama.

(Photo, by Phil Bray/Focus Features, shows Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in "Milk.")

The nation's Mormons are the target of protest in the wake of their church's support for Proposition 8, the California measure that, if upheld by the courts, will overturn same-sex marriage in that state. In today's paper, I have a story about how the backlash is being perceived by Mormons, particularly in Massachusetts. An excerpt:

This has been a stormy year for Mormons in the United States. First, there was the candidacy of Mitt Romney for president, which brought to the surface a deep strain of anti-Mormonism in American culture. Then, there was the raid on a group of schismatic polygamists in Texas, which reminded America of Mormonism's uncomfortable history. And now, there is a wave of protest, rolling across the country from west to east, in which some gay rights advocates have targeted Mormons because of their church's support for a successful California referendum to overturn same-sex marriage.

Ironically, the protests appear to be helping repair a rift within Mormonism caused by the election. The church's outspoken support for Proposition 8 exposed an unusual level of disagreement in the ordinarily harmonious Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Internet facilitated grass-roots organizing by the minority of Mormons who support same-sex marriage. But a smattering of anti-Mormon acts since Election Day - the burning of a Book of Mormon, a mailing of packets of white powder to Mormon sites, and some anti-Mormon invective expressed on signs and in sloganeering - has helped rally a denomination with a long history of persecution.

"I would not have voted in support of Prop. 8, but it does grieve me to see anybody being called bigoted for voting in an election and expressing their viewpoints," said Julie Berry, 34, of Maynard. "I support the right to protest, but vandalism and damage to church buildings - that hurts . . . and I wish we could see a little more defense of Mormons' right to exist as citizens and vote how they wish to vote. I'm sad to think that some of the social and political good will we've gained in the last 15 years may be set back."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has posted material explaining its position on Proposition 8, and offering its take on the protests, here. The latest post by the church includes a roundup of concern expressed by groups, including some that support same-sex marriage, about the targetting of Mormons in post-Election Day protests.

(Photo, by Mary Altaffer/AP, shows a protest at the Mormon Temple in New York on Nov. 12.)

The New York Times takes a look at the "Holy War" -- today's BYU vs. Utah football game. An excerpt:

"As B.Y.U. players navigate the narrow alley onto the field, Utah fans on both sides hurl down insults that are as personal as they are profane. It feels less like an entrance than a perp walk. 'They know there are two things that are really personal — one is religion, two is family,' said (Hans) Olsen, a former defensive tackle who finished his college career in 2000 and is now a sports talk radio host here. 'So they’d throw out something like, ‘How many wives did you have to ask before you could play in this game?’ It’s all the typical stereotypes about Mormons. To hear that — and it would be the same for Catholics, Buddhists, Jews — it feels like they’re attacking God.' Of course, some of those fans are themselves Mormon. They just happen to root for Utah. Many college football rivalries are conducted with a religious fervor, but when Utah and B.Y.U. play, as they will here Saturday, the fervor has religion in its roots. Thus the rivalry’s popular nickname: the Holy War. B.Y.U. is a private university owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its student population is more than 98 percent Mormon, and those students are expected to live by an honor code that forbids alcohol, drugs and premarital sex. Utah is a state university whose population is about half Mormon, but mutton-chop sideburns and halter tops are allowed, and there is a Starbucks within walking distance of campus. The universities, about 45 miles apart, often serve as proxies for one’s interpretation of the Book of Mormon. The football teams are their flag bearers."

(Photo, by Justin Edmonds/AP, shows BYU running back Fui Vakapuna celebrating with fans following BYU's 38-24 victory over Air Force on Nov. 15.)

The highest-ranking leaders of the Mormon church, increasingly alarmed as Mormon temples are targeted for protest by supporters of same-sex marriage, yesterday issued a statement objecting to what they called "intimidation of people of faith.'' Gay rights advocates have been protesting at the temples because of the support of the institutional church, as well as many of its members, for the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which overturned same-sex marriage in that state. The measure was also supported by Catholic, evangelical, and African-American Protestant churches; two Catholic bishops have issued statements about the protests at Mormon temples, which one of the Catholic bishops described as "bigoted."

Here is the Mormon statement, which comes from the first presidency, which is made up of the church president and his two counselors: and which is the highest level governing body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

"Since the people of California voted to reaffirm the sanctity of traditional marriage between a man and a woman on November 4, 2008, places of worship have been targeted by opponents of Proposition 8 with demonstrations and, in some cases, vandalism. People of faith have been intimidated for simply exercising their democratic rights. These are not actions that are worthy of the democratic ideals of our nation. The end of a free and fair election should not be the beginning of a hostile response in America.

The Church is keenly aware of the differences of opinion on this difficult and sensitive matter. The reasons for this principled stand in defense of marriage have already been articulated elsewhere. However, some of what we have seen since Californians voted to pass Proposition 8 has been deeply disappointing.

Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues. People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal. Efforts to force citizens out of public discussion should be deplored by people of goodwill everywhere.

We call upon those who have honest disagreements on this issue to urge restraint upon the extreme actions of a few that are further polarizing our communities and urge them to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other."

(Photo, by Spencer Platt/Getty, shows a demonstration outside the Mormon Temple in Manhattan on Wednesday.)

One of the more interesting, and less-explored, religion angles to this year's political action is the emergence of dissent within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the church's strong efforts to help pass Proposition 8, which would overturn same-sex marriage in California.

The church's support for Proposition 8 is not a surprise -- the Mormon church opposes homosexual activity and teaches that people who experience same-sex attraction should be celibate -- and the church has thrown itself into the campaign in California, spending millions of dollars and urging its members to work to pass the measure. In June, all church leaders were asked to read a letter to their congregations, declaring, "We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman."

But Mormon supporters of same-sex marriage have also been increasingly outspoken, launching several web sites, such as Mormons for Marriage. And the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Steve Young, the Hall of Famer quarterback and a descendant of Brigham Young, has a "No on 8" sign on his lawn.

At a Mormon Studies panel yesterday at the American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago (where I also spoke, about my experience covering Mormonism in Boston), Doe Daughtrey of Arizona State University declared that the emergence of Mormons opposed to Proposition 8 marks "the most concentrated example of Mormon dissent in the last 20 years." And Daughtrey offered a provocative hypothesis: that the campaign of Mitt Romney for president inadvertently fueled the emergence of outspoken Mormon supporters of same-sex marriage, because questions about Romney's relationship to Salt Lake City had led the church to repeatedly declare that it was OK for Mormons to go their own ways on political issues (See: Harry Reid.) It's an interesting theory, and one that was greeted with skepticism by some in the audience, and some folks questioned what the actual size of the dissenting Mormon population is, but it seems clear that the question of how Mormons responded to their church's role in the California marriage campaign will be the subject of further debate and research.

(Photo, by Trent Nelson/AP, shows Mormons delivering petitions expressing their support for gay marriage to an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Oct. 17 in Salt Lake City.)

In the new edition of the New Yorker, Margaret Talbot takes a look at the high pregnancy rates among evangelical teenagers. An excerpt:

"According to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their 'sexual début' -- to use the festive term of social-science researchers -- shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier."

(Photo at right, by John Tlumacki of the Globe staff, shows Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter, Bristol Palin, and her boyfriend, Levi Johnston, at the Republican convention in September.)

I've been curious about what's happening with the New Center for Arts & Culture, which is the Jewish organization that is attempting to construct a kind of intellectual center along the lines of New York's 92d Street Y here in Boston, so this afternoon I swung by a symposium the New Center was sponsoring called "Promised Land: Exodus and America.'' The program was co-sponsored by Nextbook.

At the moment, the New Center is closer to dream than reality -- as with other building projects planned for the Rose Kennedy Greenway, no shovelfuls of dirt have yet been turned -- so the sessions took place at a lecture hall in Northeastern University's West Village. About eighty folks attended the talk I saw, which featured Harvard English Professor Elisa New interviewing Boston University Religion Department Chairman Stephen Prothero and the writer/critic Adam Kirsch about adaptations (co-optations?) of the Exodus story by the Pilgrims, by Mormons, and by African-Americans.

Kirsch explored the appropriation of the Exodus story by Puritan preachers like John Winthrop, who explicitly depicted America as the promised land (later interpreters saw George Washington as Moses, or Joshua). Prothero talked about how Mormons saw Brigham Young as Moses and the Salt Lake Valley as the promised land, and about how African Americans saw Martin Luther King Jr. as Moses and the North, or simply an egalitarian United States, as the promised land. Interestingly, although those who established America read themselves as the Jews fleeing the Egypt that was the British Empire, Mormons and African-Americans later came to identify themselves with the Jews and saw the United States as Egypt.

A few thoughts struck me as particularly provocative. Prothero suggested that American national uses of the Exodus metaphor faded after the Civil War, and he seemed to connect that to the rise of an evangelical Christianity that was more personal, and more Jesus-centered, than the communal and God-the-Father-centered Christianity of early Americans. He noted that at the time of his death, Lincoln (who died just before reaching the promised land of freedom) was sometimes compared to Moses, but that later comparisons to Jesus (Lincoln was killed on Good Friday) became more common.

New and Kirsch both talked about a lack of identification with the Exodus story by contemporary American Jews -- "what astounds me is that Jews don't seem to want it," New said -- which they suggested was linked to ambivalence about whether the United States or Israel is the promised land. "If America is the promised land, what does that say about our relationship to the original Promised Land," Kirsch asked. Prothero took that idea further, saying, "The obvious answer is Jews in America can't read themselves into the story as clearly as blacks can, or Puritans can, or Mormons can. You have a problem: You have a Promised Land, and this isn't it. So the story gets taken over.''

(Image from Nextbook.)

Chad Hardy (left), the creator of a calendar of shirtless Mormon missionaries, has now not only been excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but is being denied a diploma by Brigham Young University. Jennifer Dobner of the Associated Press reports:

"A Sept. 30 letter from BYU Executive Director of Student Academic & Advisement Services Norman B. Finlinson states that a nonacademic hold was placed on Hardy's record after the university learned of the excommunication. 'If in the future you are reinstated as a member of the church in good standing, you are invited to contact my office regarding your possible eligibility for the awarding of a degree,' Finlinson wrote. Hardy said he'll challenge BYU's position. 'I intend to fight this tooth-and-nail,' the 31-year-old entrepreneur said."

Over at Times & Seasons, a popular Mormon blog, there's an interesting conversation taking place about the response by church and university to the calendar. Blogger Matt Evans observes:

"It’s hard to know why BYU would choose to prolong the Chad Hardy PR disaster. The best explanation is that BYU administrators watch late night comedy shows wondering, Why Aren’t There More Jokes about BYU? Or they sit around wondering how they can really give the Men on a Mission franchise a shot in the arm with a huge dose of free publicity. This law suit will guarantee Hardy, who’s shown he understands the media well, a half dozen news cycles over the next year or two (announcing this letter, the filing of the law suit, BYU’s response, the hearings, the ruling; the appeal, BYU’s response, the hearings, the ruling). After BYU’s administrators help Hardy sell an extra hundred thousand Men on a Mission calendars, expand his product line and make him a national symbol of Freedom of Expression, they’ll probably realize Hardy didn’t accept their fight because he wanted the diploma."

But at the Dallas Morning News's religion blog, Bruce Tomaso writes:

"Doesn't sound entirely fair -- if he earned the diploma, he earned it. But, then, BYU is owned and operated by the Mormon Church. It's their school."

UPDATE: Julie Berry, the new public affairs director for the Boston Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, e-mails:

"The Church Public Affairs office released a response to the AP article by Jennifer Dobner covering this story on September 30. The full response is available here. The two points of important distinction:

1. None of the men in the calendar were missionaries when photographed. They were former missionaries. The distinction is important to the credibility of the mission program around the world.
2. It is impossible for Jennifer Dobner to state why Chad Hardy was excommunicated because the circumstances of an excommunication are always extremely private, complex, and multi-faceted. When an excommunication does occur, it is the sad conclusion to a lengthy process where numerous attempts to repair the situation have been exhausted. The Church's response notes that several concerns were at play in Mr. Hardy's excommunication."

(Photo, by Isaac Brekken/AP, shows Chad Hardy holding his "Men on a Mission" calendar in July.)

This is a pretty unbelievable case: a Framingham man is on trial for allegedly bludgeoning his wife and 11-year-old stepson to death because he was upset about her involvement with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeremias Bins and Carla Souza met at the Mormon chapel in Weston, but he allegedly became upset about her commitment to church activities. An excerpt from a story by reporter Brian Ballou:

"According to Souza's brother, Elvio Maya, who took the witness stand yesterday, Bins, who was baptized as a Lutheran, never accepted Souza's religion. Bins believed women should stay at home and tend to the family, Maya said. But Souza was an extrovert, an independent woman who liked to work and study. Bins wanted his wife to be at home when he got off work, but his biggest argument was with her church, Maya said. He felt its members were meddling in his family life. Hettinger said Bins called Souza's church and told the missionaries there never to come to his house again. Souza was upset, and she and Bins got into a heated argument. Moments later, Souza called the police."

The Globe took an in-depth look at the case in 2006, shortly after the double-homicide. The trial is expected to last two weeks; the Globe plans to cover the verdict.

(Photo above shows Carla Souza and her husband Jeremias Bins.)

A top official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking at the church's General Conference, yesterday urged his fellow Mormons to remain Christian in their response to attacks on their Christianity. In today's Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack reports:

"More regrettable than the [LDS] Church being accused of not being Christian is when church members react to such accusations in an un-Christlike way," Apostle Robert D. Hales said on the second day of the two-day conference. "Surely our Heavenly Father is saddened - and the devil laughs - when we contentiously debate doctrinal differences with our Christian neighbors." Sometimes, the best response is to say nothing at all, Hales said. "Meekness is not weakness. It is a badge of Christian courage."

(Photo above, by Getty, shows the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing during the fourth session of the 178th Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

Catholics and Protestants have long taken a dim view of various aspects of Mormon theology, but the candidacy of Mitt Romney for president brought to the fore (again) the deep suspicion with which some traditional Christians view the Mormon faith. (Mormons have sometimes taken a similarly dim view of the practices of traditional Christians, arguing that those churches lost their way shortly after the events of the New Testament, and that Mormonism is actually a restoration of true Christianity.) The magazine First Things, in its October issue, offers a meaty and interesting point/counterpoint between a Mormon and a Protestant theologian. The two, not surprisingly, disagree.

A key paragraph from Bruce D. Porter, who is a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

"Are Mormons Christian? By self-definition and self-identity, unquestionably so. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirms that it is a Christian-faith denomination, a body of believers who worship Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and who witness that salvation is possible only by his atoning blood and grace. By the simple dictionary definition of a Christian as one who believes in or worships Jesus Christ, the case is compelling. To the title Christian a critic of Mormonism may add any modifiers he deems appropriate—unorthodox, heretical, non-Nicene, different—but blanket assertions that we are not Christian are a poor substitute for informed argument and dialogue."

And an excerpt from the response by Gerald R. McDermott, an Episcopal priest who is a professor of religion at Roanoke College:

"Mormon beliefs diverge widely from historic Christian orthodoxy. The Book of Mormon, which is Mormonism’s principal source for its claim to new revelation and a new prophet, lacks credibility. And the Jesus proclaimed by Joseph Smith and his followers is different in significant ways from the Jesus of the New Testament: Smith’s Jesus is a God distinct from God the Father; he was once merely a man and not God; he is of the same species as human beings; and his being and acts are limited by coeternal matter and laws. The intent of this essay is not to say that individual Mormons will be barred from sitting with Abraham and the saints at the marriage supper of the Lamb. We are saved by a merciful Trinity, not by our theology. But the distinguished scholar of Mormonism Jan Shipps was only partly right when she wrote that Mormonism is a departure from the existing Christian tradition as much as early Christianity was a departure from Judaism. For if Christianity is a shoot grafted onto the olive tree of Judaism, Mormonism as it stands cannot be successfully grafted onto either."

(Depiction of Jesus from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

As expected, a big subject today at the Religion Newswriters Association convention is how print journalists can adapt to a world in which an increasing fraction of our audience (including, obviously, anyone who is reading this post) is reading us on the web. A panel of journalists -- Cathy Grossman of USA Today, Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News, and David Waters of WashingtonPost.com, spoke about their different approaches to this problem -- Grossman has successfully persuaded her paper to publish a religion page on its web site, Hodges participates in that paper's group blog about religion, and Waters, the former religion writer for the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, is the editor and producer of On Faith, which is a web collaboration between the Washington Post and Newsweek.

For me, one of the most interesting subjects that came up was that of comments. Grossman was a strong advocate of enabling comments on stories and blogs, because, she said, it keeps readers present longer, and thereby persuades editors, and advertisers, that your beat is worthy of support.

But Waters noted that comments about religion are often ugly -- something I've observed here in my short time blogging. Here's what he said:

"Even Jerry Springer would be ashamed of the comments that we have on our site. They're that bad. Our philosophy is that the web is a platform that we are part of -- it's not ours....We have to abide by the rules of the Web, and the Web rules have always been very democratic, very open, and anonymity is fine...We will remove comments that go over the line, but some really awful comments go on line. I think eventually somebody’s going to get sued for a comment on some site, and we’re going to find out how the courts feel about this.''

Waters observed that at On Faith, they now talk about the three Ms -- Muslims, Mormons, and Moosekillers -- that are most likely to generate discussion, and vitriol. And, he made this observation about the impact of so-called metrics -- the endless measuring of web site traffic -- on journalism.

"When you are measuring and judging your content by clicks, it changes the way you think about what you’re offering. In some ways, that’s good, but it’s also bad...The temptation is to have more posts about things that you know are going to click, which skews your news judgment.''

This is a subject that has received some attention elsewhere. GetReligion's Terry Mattingly weighed in earlier this summer, in a post cheekily titled, "How to avoid comments at GetReligion." An excerpt:

"Here at GetReligion, we are well aware that certain subjects cause more comments than others, including the work of trolls that like to set straw men on fire — thus driving up comment-page statistics. Some cynical readers out there may even believe that this leads to lots and lots of GetReligion writing about clashes between lesbigay Episcopalians and conservative believers in California. If Mormons are involved, that’s even better...We also know how to avoid receiving comments on GetReligion posts and what we have learned, frankly, often makes us depressed. We realize that this is a comment on the nature of cyberspace communities, but all we have to do to avoid comments is write posts that: Praise the work of mainstream journalists. Negative writing inspires more debate; Focus on trends in Judaism, Islam or other faith groups that (in U.S. media) are not all of that powerful or viewed as out of the mainstream; Try to call attention to journalistic issues linked to foreign-news coverage about religion; Openly seek calm, informative feedback from readers about how to solve a journalistic puzzle that really needs to be solved. So if you want to throw cold water on a comments board, all you have do is write a post that praises a mainstream news organization for its insightful coverage of an important event on the other side of the world, while also asking for feedback about the issue that’s involved. Right, that’s the ticket."

In my own brief blogging career, Sarah Palin has been the gift that keeps on giving -- she has generated an astonishing number of comments, from both ends of the political, and theological, spectrum, many of them saturated with incredible hostility directed by the non-religious at the religious and vice versa. And, I must say, four groups in particular seem to draw a huge amount of venom on this blog: Catholics, Evangelicals, Muslims and Scientologists. I've junked all kinds of comments that I have found just beyond the pale -- those that use certain obscenities, of course, but also those in which readers allude to the sexual fantasies they have projected onto Sarah Palin, those in which people express pleasure at the crucifixion of Jesus, and so on. But that still leaves plenty of room for name-calling and a lot of mean-spiritedness, bias, and, arguably, hatred, that, at least to me, is unsettling.

A colleague of mine suggests that the web is self-correcting; one person posts a nasty comment about the Catholic Church, and another posts a comment rebutting the criticism. And there's an element of truth to that. But the tenor of that exchange is often ugly. I haven't yet figured out what it all means -- I don't know what relation the opinions expressed by commenters has to the opinions of our overall readership, and I don't know what fraction of non-commenters even bother reading the comments. A local Episcopal priest e-mailed me yesterday and told me that, upon reading the comments to an item I posted about the local mosque, "I encountered the blogging (comments) about it - reminding me once again why I don't blog or read much blogging. My hair gets on fire too fast - and it would even if I were bald."

Nonetheless, here at the Globe (and many other news organizations are doing the same) we are moving rapidly in the direction of enabling comments on more and more content, as one part of an effort to allow readers more ways to engage with our site. But as news organizations try to find their way in this brave new world, the whole question of what it means to host a conversation seems ripe for a lot more consideration.

As always, and fully aware of the irony here, I'd love to hear your thoughts, so comment away.

(Image above is of the Fremont Troll in Seattle.)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- the Mormons -- this morning broke ground on a $20 million stake center (architectural rendering above), which will house several congregations and a regional office, in East Cambridge.

About 150 people gathered under sunny skies on an asphalt parking lot at the corner of Rogers and Second streets, an industrial area where it seems like another biotech company is constructing a new building every day. There were a series of prayers and songs and a trumpet solo, and then various LDS and local dignitaries took turns turning over shovelfuls of dirt in a box that had been installed on top of the asphalt for the ceremony.

The building, which will front on Binney Street, will be significantly smaller than the Mormon temple that looms over Route 2 in Belmont, but will be larger than the meeting houses that Mormons use for regular worship (there are LDS meeting houses in Belmont, Boston, Cambridge, Lynnfield and Revere, among other places). Unlike the Belmont Temple, which was the subject of litigation, and a proposed meetinghouse in Brookline, which is being held up by neighborhood opposition, the Cambridge project has been moving more smoothly, apparently because most of the neighbors are non-residential, and because the brick-clad building, despite its steeple, will be smaller than many of the new biotech buildings in the area.

Grant Bennett, a longtime LDS leader locally, told me that the actual construction is scheduled to begin Wednesday, and that the target completion date is February 2010. He said the building will house four congregations -- two of which worship in English, one in Spanish, and one in Portuguese -- that now meet in rented spaces in East Cambridge and Somerville. The building will also have office space for the stake president -- a Mormon stake is a geographic unit roughly akin to a diocese in Catholicism -- and will also have a full-size basketball court for recreational use. (The Cambridge Stake, which will be headquartered in the new building, has 4,000 members who worship in 14 congregations, called wards and branches, in Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge, Lynn, Lynnfield, Revere and Somerville). The chapel in the building will be able to house 250 to 300 worshipers, but can also be expanded into the basketball court for regional meetings, with a potential capacity of 1,200 people.

At the groundbreaking I ran into Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Harvard history professor who, by dint of her status as a "university professor" at Harvard (not to mention her Pulitzer and her MacArthur "genius" grant) is one of the most prominent Mormons in academia. Ulrich is a member of one of the congregations that for the last five years has been worshipping in the former Kendall Boiler and Tank Building around the corner; she said the local congregations are a mix of academics, young professionals, and recent immigrants. She said the church's decision to build the stake center in East Cambridge reflects what appears to be a trend in Mormonism in the U.S. -- at least in the Northeast -- in which the predominantly suburban church is investing more in urban areas.

"This development expresses the church's commitment to the urban core,'' said Ulrich, who said the church has also recently constructed a new facility in Harlem. "It tends to be a suburban thing, and to commit this money to an urban center and to maintaining members here is significant.''

(Architectural rendering above by Burt,Hill.)

The former governor of Minnesota, Arne Carlson (right), a Republican who has butted heads with religious conservatives in the past, is urging John McCain not to use religious affiliation as a criterion in selecting a running-mate. This, of course, is an issue because some evangelicals are uncomfortable with Mormonism, the faith of one possible Republican vice-presidential nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In the (St. Paul) Pioneer Press, Bill Salisbury reports:

"In a letter to McCain dated Saturday, Carlson said he is offended that some Republicans are demanding that McCain rule out some potential vice-presidential candidates because of their religious beliefs. He didn't mention Mitt Romney by name, but he implied that the former Massachusetts governor should not be eliminated from consideration just because he is a Mormon. Some evangelicals oppose Romney because of his religious faith. 'If a Mormon cannot be considered today for high office, who will be eliminated from the same consideration tomorrow?' Carlson asked. 'If a segment of a broad religion can impose its religious criteria on a presidential candidate and the Republican Party, then what other challenges to the Constitution can they make?'"

Carlson was governor of Minnesota from 1991 to 1999.

(Image at right is Carlson's official portrait, in a University of Minnesota sweatshirt, from the Minnesota Historical Society.)

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has posted a video discussion about faith and politics with Burns Strider, who handled faith outreach for Hillary Clinton, and Mark DeMoss, who advised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The two were interviewed by John C. Green, a professor at the University of Akron, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, and one of the nation's leading scholars on the relationship between religious affiliation and voting behavior.

One interesting exchange comes when the two are asked to describe challenges they faced. Here is Strider, talking about Clinton:

"As many of us know, over the past 15, 20 years, polling has always indicated a pretty low number of people who would say that Hillary Clinton is a woman of faith, personal faith. So you come in with that challenge 16 months ago when this began. So what I had to work with was kind of this gulf between what was the reality and what was the perception because in reality you had this really active United Methodist who had spent her life active in the church."

And DeMoss, on Romney:

"In Mitt Romney’s case, the important thing was not to reach out on religious terms, but to reach out on values terms. I’ve often said that as an evangelical Southern Baptist, in terms of values, I have more in common with most Mormons than I would with a liberal Southern Baptist or a liberal Methodist or an Episcopalian or you name it."

The full transcript is on the Pew site; a clip is below.

A new examination of the Mountain Meadows massacre by three Mormon historians argues that there is no evidence for the allegation that Brigham Young (right), the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ordered the attack in which 120 non-Mormons, travelling across southern Utah in 1857, were killed. Peggy Fletcher Stack, the religion reporter at the Salt Lake Tribune, reports:

"Local Latter-day Saints' paranoia, poverty, miscommunication, isolation and greed - not a secret edict from Brigham Young - led to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Ronald Walker, Richard Turley and Glen Leonard argue in their long-awaited volume (left), which hits bookstores this week. 'It is true that [Young's] rhetoric during a time of war was part of the backdrop against which the massacre happened,' Turley said this week, 'but he was not the proximate cause'.''

The Mountain Meadows massacre remains one of the ugliest chapters of Mormon history, and came to renewed public attention last year in "The Mormons," a PBS documentary, and "September Dawn,'' a feature film starring Terence Stamp as Brigham Young, which might have sparked more debate about the incident but for the fact that the movie was so terrible it sank without a trace.