Five years ago, I stood at Ground Zero in New York City. While attending the Memorial Museum, the magnitude of the calamity enveloped me. There are walls of postcards with thousands of written accounts from people all over the world. My personal story seems trite compared to others. Nonetheless, I believe that each individual’s experience on Sept. 11, 2001 serves as an eye-witness against the evil targeted at America.My morning began as usual, watching the news while getting ready for work. The breaking bulletin of airplanes crashing into New York City’s Twin Towers was mind-boggling. I had to force myself to get ready for teaching preschool. I remember looking deeply into the mirror while applying my make-up. The black eyeliner upon my eyes suddenly seemed symbolic of the darkness our nation was facing.

The Latter-day Saint practice of vicarious baptism on behalf of the dead is once again a focus of controversy. In the past few weeks, it's been portrayed in the news media and on the web as unbiblical, ghoulish, bizarre, shameful, vicious, anti-Semitic, immoral, hateful, an exercise in "black magic" and (by some extremists) possibly even illegal. A national television commentator recently named President Thomas S. Monson among "the worst people in the world" for presiding over the practice. It's high time for the view of a very respected non-Mormon scholar to be heard above the noise.

Jokes about sacred underpants have reached epidemic proportions, thanks to Mitt Romney’s presidential bid and the musical masterpiece by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, “The Book of Mormon”. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to give it its full name, is fighting back. A huge advertising campaign features ordinary people doing ordinary things—a white man sporting a beard, a black man sporting a moustache and a young skateboarder flying through the air—with the tag line: “I’m a Mormon.” The snag is, not everyone will buy the idea that Mormons are just like the rest of us. They don’t get drunk. They have large families, stable marriages and a three-month supply of food in the larder in case of Armageddon. They are usually clean-cut and neatly dressed (the facial hair in the “I’m a Mormon” ads is thankfully atypical). And they have a passion for business.

Perhaps if William Hopoate dressed in one of his old rugby league jerseys – and not a crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt, distinctive black name tag and tie – the man who responded with such unbridled hostility towards him after he offered a polite "hello" at the local shopping centre might have stopped to shake his hand and talk. Instead, the thick-set bruiser glared at the clean-cut teenager and cursed under his breath as he marched past with his chest puffed out. Moments later another local nodded timidly as Elder Hopoate, Mormon missionary, asked how his day was going; an Asian woman panicked and indicated via frantic hand signals that she couldn't speak English when Hopoate and his missionary companion, Elder Paia'aua, approached her.

Among the knickknacks on the shelves of Pamay Bassey's home office in Chicago is small black urn with a gold motif standing next to a Bible written in Ibibio, a Nigerian language.

Mockery of Mormonism comes easily for many Americans. Commentators have offered many reasons, but even they have found it difficult to turn their gaze from Mormon peculiarities. As a result, they have missed a critical function of American anti-Mormonism: the faith has been oddly reassuring to Americans. As a recent example, the Broadway hit “The Book of Mormon” lampoons the religion’s naïveté on racial issues, which is striking given that the most biting criticisms have focused on the show’s representations of Africans and blackness. As a Mormon and a scholar of religious history, I am unsurprised by the juxtaposition of Mormon mocking and racial insensitivity. Anti-Mormonism has long masked America’s contradictions and soothed American self-doubt.

The Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal—chaplain at Oxford University and personal friend of Elder Holland—gave a powerful forum address at BYU this week. But maybe the most surprising aspect of his message was the sheer amount of uniquely Latter-day Saint scriptures he included in his message.

Whether or not Jon Huntsman will face off against President Obama in the 2012 presidential race remains to be seen, but if all had gone according to plan, the 51-year-old GOP candidate would've actually been rocking a much different type of arena. As NPR is reporting, Huntsman -- a former Utah governor and Obama-appointed U.S. ambassador to China -- originally dropped out of high school to be a rock 'n' roll star with a garage band called Wizard. The man who's been described as “a conservative technocrat-optimist with moderate positions” has certainly made no secret of his adolescent passion ("My initial passion in life was to be a rock 'n' roll musician," Huntsman is quoted by The Los Angeles Times as having told graduates at the University of South Carolina). But now, his former bandmates are coming forward, telling NPR that Huntsman, a devout Mormon, found ways of adapting his passion for rock music with the guidelines of his religion.

In the hopes of building bipartisanship and communication, Mitt Romney and Joe Biden came together at this year's Romney Summit.

On June 28, the Human Resource Department of the Church announced some big changes for Church employees.