Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 4 of the book "The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith," by Matthew Bowman, published this week by Random House. Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Bowman. All rights reserved. If the Mormons saw themselves as a new Israel, the trek west was inevitably their Exodus. For generations of Mormons, including the one that walked across the prairies, what mattered more than the destination was the act of the journey. It was a collective rite of passage that thousands of Mormons endured, as they had learned to endure all suffering: the death of their prophet, their flight from Ohio and Missouri, and their march across the plains all were taken as divinely sent education, clarifying and refining, testing the bonds that the temple ordinances had created, and they saw God's hand in every bush of berries. Many Mormons were rebaptized upon reaching Utah; they had traveled not only from the United States to the Utah territory but also from the secular realm to God's promised land, reborn into a sacred world. The banks and courts still close in Utah on July 24, the day Brigham Young crossed into the Salt Lake Valley, and the Mormons there celebrate it still, though the number of those who have ancestors who walked across the plains is a fading minority. They have become an archetype.

Most Americans believe religious responses to gay and lesbian issues is an important reason young people are leaving organized religion. But researchers who have dug into this topic have discovered some findings that might surprise you.

“There will be a convergence of discoveries (never enough, mind you, to remove the need for faith) to make plain and plausible what the modern prophets have been saying all along…[I] do not expect incontrovertible proof to come in this way…, but neither will the Church be outdone by hostile or pseudo-scholars.” (Neal A. Maxwell) In 1997 a group of Latter-day Saints who frequented the Mormon message boards of America Online found that they were responding to the same LDS-critical arguments over and over. They decided to form a non-profit organization so they could share information and create a repository of responses. That organization was The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, or FAIR. In 1999 FAIR held their first conference in Ben Lomond California. A large percentage of the few who attended this first conference were the speakers themselves. Two weeks ago FAIR held their fifteenth annual conference in Provo, Utah, with about 400 attendees.

Like millions of others worldwide, the terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 left Avais Ahmed with a feeling of great sorrow. For all of us, it was a tragedy beyond comprehension, but for Ahmed, it was doubly painful, because it was another incident that shed a negative light on his faith as a Muslim.

There’s no such thing as fitting the “mold” of the Church, although it might sometimes feel that way.

A husband and a father of four, Jose Hernandez, often called Pepe by his family and friends, was no stranger to service, from his four years in the army to his two-year mission in Costa Rica for the Church.

On October 14, 2020, Elder David A. Bednar participated in the G20 Interfaith Forum, a gathering of leaders from all over the world and of different faiths. Elder Bednar’s address focuses on why religion is essential in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full text of his address is available at Church News.

Calling it a "surreal experience" to stand in the Marriott Center and give a devotional address on December 6, Young Women general president, Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, shared a brief, hilarious look into her years at Brigham Young University.

After hearing about acts of terrorism around the world in recent years, it can be difficult not to succumb to fearful living.

Members of the church are counseled to obtain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. How does one know when they have a testimony?