When the pastor of a Dallas megachurch called the Mormon faith a "cult" and a "false religion" at a recent political rally in reference to the faith of two Republican presidential candidates, he sparked a media firestorm. But while the Rev. Robert Jeffress used inflammatory language when he endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry for the nomination, his words highlight real differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches.

The Book of Mormon is a collection of inspired writings by prophets who lived on the American continent anciently. The main writer was the prophet Mormon, who abridged other records to compile the volume named for him. He engraved his record on plates of gold, and, many years later, these plates were revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith by an angel in upstate New York.

Kudos to Bret Stephens for his defense of Latter-day Saints. Kudos to Simon Critchley for a similarly generous article. And kudos to the always terrific Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times for her article about a fragment of a document suggesting Jesus may have had a wife. In a way she didn't likely intend, Goodstein enhanced my faith in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. More on the Goodstein piece in a moment.

Have you ever wondered why LDS church lessons seem to be recycled every few years? Or why the lesson manuals can be used in high priests group, elder’s quorum, Relief Society classes? Or why there isn’t much distinction between what is taught to the high priests or the MIA maids? It’s called correlation, and despite the opening of this blog, there’s actually as many positives to it than there are negatives. As author Matthew Bowman explains in his superb book, “The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith,” by the mid-1950s, the LDS Church was in real danger of becoming a global bureaucratic nightmare, and an expensive one.

Packed into several communities in and around Palmyra, a quiet village of nearly 3,500 people in upstate New York, are well-defined religious historic sites, which are also a part of American history. To members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the area surrounding Palmyra has significance few other areas have. It is where a 14-year-old boy named Joseph Smith, serious about following God’s teachings, found a quiet spot in a grove of trees near his home and prayed for answers to many of the perplexing spiritual questions of 1820. It was there Latter-day Saints believe God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to the young Joseph. That experience was the humble beginning of a worldwide religion that dots the globe with more than 14 million members.

The BGEA legitimized a group that has been excoriated for decades as anathema to good ol’ American values. In a simple—and, perhaps precipitous—move, the BGEA has made Mormons like me normal. I confess that I’m going to miss the cult lifestyle. Staying up all night. Carousing with ne’er-do-wells. Terrorizing farm animals. Plotting to destroy the constitution. I remember, like it was yesterday, worshiping Stephen R. Covey for my 16th sixteenth birthday. Sigh. Once they’re gone, those days don’t come back.

Martin’s Cove Wyoming: the rugged west, cowboys, horses, plentiful wildlife and a lot of Mormon pioneer history. There are many things to do and learn in the great outdoors in America’s 44th state.

At the beginning of Lehi in the Desert, the late, legendary Hugh Nibley reviews the distinguished American archaeologist William F. Albright’s criteria for determining the historical plausibility of the Middle Egyptian tale of Sinuhe, which Albright considers to be “‘a substantially true account of life in its milieu’ on the grounds (1) that its ‘local color [is] extremely plausible,’ (2) it describes a ‘state of social organization’ which ‘agrees exactly with our present archaeological and documentary evidence,’ (3) ‘the Amorite personal names contained in the story are satisfactory for that period and region,’ and (4) ‘finally, there is nothing unreasonable in the story itself.’”[i] Nibley then asks about the story of Lehi: “Does it correctly reflect ‘the cultural horizon and religious and social ideas and practices of the time’? Does it have authentic historical and geographical background?

On Dec. 25, 1964, as Mitt Romney enjoyed his last Christmas break as a high school student in Michigan, two Mormon missionaries visited Darius Gray in Colorado Springs and asked him if he had any last questions before joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He had one. A proud African American, Gray expressed wariness over a description in the Book of Mormon of a dark-skinned tribe being out of favor with God and asked, “How, in any way, does that relate to me?” The younger of the two missionaries stood off to the side as his senior companion explained, “‘Well, Brother Gray, the primary implication is that you won’t be able to hold the priesthood.’”

The surge of new full-time missionaries entering its existing Missionary Training Centers has prompted The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to announce it will close a high school it operates in Mexico City and convert it into an MTC that will accommodate missionaries called to serve in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Elder Russell M. Nelson and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, both members of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, presided at a Tuesday night meeting during which the establishment of what will be the church’s second-largest MTC was announced. The meeting was held on the campus of the church’s privately owned high school, Benemerito de las Americas, which will be closed and its facilities used for the new MTC.