Lopez gets up to 16 years for sexual abuse of child | Local News | rexburgstandardjournal.com

A man previously deported from the United States was sentenced to 4 to 16 years in prison following a hearing in Madison County District Court on Monday afternoon. During the court hearing the judge found the defendant guilty of sexually abusing a child under the age of 16.

Fernando Lopez-Susano, who was living in the United States illegally, and his attorney, Jay Kohler, came before Seventh District Judge Greg Moeller for sentencing. Lopez pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse charge via an Alford plea last year. In an Alford plea a defendant maintains his innocence but acknowledges that there is enough evidence to convict him.

Lopez originally faced a charge of lewd conduct with a minor under the age of 16 as well as the charge of sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 16. He later pleaded guilty to the latter charge in exchange for the first charge being dropped by the Madison County prosecutor.

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Kohler presented Moeller with several certificates that Lopez received while in prison. The certificates are from the 12-step Addiction Recovery Program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that Lopez regularly attended. Kohler also gave Moeller several letters from an LDS bishop, LDS Sunday School teachers at the jail and LDS missionaries who had interacted with Lopez.

“It’s relevant from our perspective that (Lopez) has not sat in jail watching the clock. He has taken steps to better himself and is making an effort to involve himself in some degree of Christianity,” Kohler said.

Lopez gets up to 16 years for sexual abuse of child | Local News | rexburgstandardjournal.com

Sex abuse allegations have rocked the polygamous church of ‘Sister Wives,’ causing rift from Utah to Montana - The Salt Lake Tribune

She had dated a boy her age off and on for years. They discussed getting married. Then, in fall 2014, a dispute erupted in their church — the Apostolic United Brethren, a so-called Mormon fundamentalist group that believes in polygamy.

A daughter and two nieces accused Lynn Thompson, the AUB president, of fondling or molesting them as girls. Some in Pinesdale — a community so small with so few surnames that they call one another by their first names — continued following Lynn, now 77 years old, either because they still believe he was a prophet of God or that the allegations against him weren’t true or they just didn’t want to risk dividing their families.

Sex abuse allegations have rocked the polygamous church of ‘Sister Wives,’ causing rift from Utah to Montana - The Salt Lake Tribune

Accused real estate guru invested in sexy horror flick to raise funds for movie on Mormon church founder Joseph Smith - The Salt Lake Tribune

Utah filmmaker Richard Dutcher told a federal court jury Monday that Rick Koerber put about $5 million from his real estate investment operation into a sexy horror movie called “Evil Angel,” with the goal of earning enough money to make another film about LDS Church founder Joseph Smith.

Dutcher testified at the beginning of the fourth week of trial for Koerber, who’s facing 18 charges that allege he took in about $100 million in investments and returned nearly half that back as interest payments in an alleged Ponzi scheme.

An indictment alleges that Koerber told investors their money would go to purchase single-family homes but that he also spent money for restaurants, personal expenses like luxury autos and the Dutcher movie.

Accused real estate guru invested in sexy horror flick to raise funds for movie on Mormon church founder Joseph Smith - The Salt Lake Tribune

A new Mormon offshoot movement is growing, but can it last? | Religion News Service

Don’t call Denver Snuffer Jr. a prophet and don’t view his Remnant movement as a church.

Of course, it was his account about a face-to-face meeting with Jesus that branded him a prophetic figure in the first place. And his 2013 excommunication from the LDS Church for “apostasy” — arguing that after the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, the faith he founded no longer had the exclusive truth or divine authority — seems to have made Snuffer more popular with segments of dissatisfied Mormons.

Before long, hundreds of like-minded seekers traveled to hear Snuffer speak  — in St. George, Phoenix and Boise — and poured out of their respective LDS pews to form “fellowships,” or small groups, usually gathering in houses and yearning for, well, something more.

They were mostly super-Mormons, zealots who gave their all to the faith. They taught in the LDS Church Educational System or worked at church-owned Brigham Young University. They served in temples. They dissected the scriptures looking for potent but hidden clues to Jesus’ Second Coming or keys to salvation.

A new Mormon offshoot movement is growing, but can it last? | Religion News Service

The state of Deseret flag still flies over Salt Lake City | The Salt Lake Tribune

The Flag of the Kingdom of God of the State of Deseret flies above Utah's capital city at the Ensign Peak Nature Park — a Salt Lake City municipal park.

After calls to take down the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina Capitol last week, historian John Gary Maxwell said Utahns should have a similar conversation.

"It's certainly confusing to me," he said regarding the LDS flag. "Up until Brigham Young's death, Utah was a theocracy. There was no separation between church and state."

The Ensign Peak preserve was dedicated to the city by Gordon B. Hinckley, the late president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in 1996. Its trailhead bears three flags: the Stars and Stripes, Utah's state flag and the flag representing the State of Deseret that later became the Territory of Utah before statehood in 1896.

The State of Deseret flag could be at odds with the separation of church and state outlined in the U.S. Constitution, Maxwell said.

And, he noted, even today, Utah legislative leaders meet with LDS officials before the annual legislative session convenes in January.

"It's appropriate for people to discuss what it means," Maxwell said. "With the flag up there, it says to me there is no separation between church and state."

The state of Deseret flag still flies over Salt Lake City | The Salt Lake Tribune

High School Coach Allegedly Kicked 3 Girls Off The Team After They Would Not Say A Mormon Prayer | ThinkProgress

Wondering where Alliance Defending Freedom is? You know the group that works "tirelessly to advocate for the right of people to freely live out their faith in America and around the world." Or Liberty Counsel? The "policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom." Isn't this coach being persecuted for "his" religious beliefs? Shouldn't the Reich and its media lapdogs be up in arms?

Oh wait, wrong kind of "christian." With Romney out of the picture, Mormonism is heading back to "cult" status:

But when "the greatest proclaimer of the gospel in the last century," as one Southern Baptist called Graham, embraced Mormonism last week, he confirmed conservative evangelicals' worst fears about the 2012 election: That Romney's rise would lift his Mormon church to cultural prominence and acceptance within mainstream Christianity.

Howell Scott, senior pastor Bethel Baptist Church in Alamogordo, N.M., said the BGEA's declassification of Mormonism as a cult "will have disastrous unintended consequences."

I will be curious to see how this dispute ends.

Three public school students in Mesa, Arizona, including a team captain, were allegedly removed from their varsity softball team, in part because they did not want to start each game with a “team prayer.” According to a complaint filed in a federal court in Arizona, the three girls were “penalized for not conducting ‘team prayer’ in accordance with the directive of Joseph Goodman,” the team’s coach. Coach Goodman, allegedly acted “for himself and at the behest of certain parents that were part of the [Mormon] Church.”

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Setting aside the issue of whether Mormon students and parents in Mesa, Arizona enjoy a “heckler’s veto” that they can use to effectively shout down students that they disagree with, there is little question that the coach violated the Constitution if he actually punished students because they refused to participate in a prayer. Indeed, the coach’s alleged actions might even violate an unusually conservative vision of the Constitution. Justice Antonin Scalia has consistently argued that the wall of separation between church and state should be cut down a few sizes. Yet Scalia argued in his dissenting opinion in Lee v. Weisman that the state may not use the “threat of penalty” to “coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise.”

Punishing people who refuse to join a prayer before a softball game uses the threat of penalty to coerce them into a religious exercise. So the plaintiffs’ allegations, if proven true, may even violate Justice Scalia’s understanding of the Constitution.

High School Coach Allegedly Kicked 3 Girls Off The Team After They Would Not Say A Mormon Prayer | ThinkProgress

Liberty University fines students for not listening to cult leader ← Pajama Pages

Although this has always been in the back of my mind in regards to Liberty, I could never quite put my finger on it. Maybe because I am no longer of the "faith" I'm not as sharp to pick up on the subtle cues of what some consider "heresy." My gripes are centered on dogma, abuse and hypocrisy; things that usually are glossed over (ie the re-emergence of Hinn, Baker and the likes being examples). But the author IMHO hits it home, "[t]he alarming feature of last week’s message is that Beck did not appear as a political or cultural leader; instead, he used his time to preach a message full of theological assertions that were unchallenged by the university, and which received a standing ovation from Jerry Falwell at the end of the event."

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Liberty University invited Mormon Glenn Beck to preach to its students at its compulsory convocation last week, handing out $10 fines to residential students who didn’t have a suitable excuse for not attending.

The Beck sermon continues a worrying trend that signals Liberty’s rapid retreat from Christian orthodoxy to an unapologetic embrace of false religions and heretics, starting with self-proclaimed messiah Rev. Moon in the 1990s, to Benny Hinn and the Mormon church today. Though it still markets itself as a Christian university, its definition as to what passes as Christian is not one shared by most of the churches that send their young people there for an education.

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Beck’s sermon and Liberty’s unwitting acceptance of it constitute an excellent case study in how false teachers infiltrate the church. False teachers never appear wearing horns and announcing that they are dangerous wolves. Instead, they look and sound like they’re preaching God’s truth, injecting their deceptions at the edges when nobody is looking, or manipulating language to lull the audience into agreeing to statements that carry secondary, false meanings. Beck was a master at it, and Liberty appears to have no idea what hit them. Here’s how Beck got to teach his false religion to thousands of students at America’s largest Christian university.

I find that assessment interesting as it mirrors one of my (secular) concerns in regards to the "teaching" of the Nephilim doctrine. A wolf in sheep clothing if one looks at the underlying doctrines (ie.gap theory, serpent seed doctrine), one must embrace to to accept the "truth" being taught by the likes of Missler, Skiba, Phillips and others. What once was underground is now becoming mainstream in many churches.
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Although this was alluded to in the body of the article, and the point I believe the author was TRYING to make, it seems that some took umbrage to the title calling it "misleading" and "out of context."

"I can honestly say that none of us were offended that Mr. Beck came and spoke. Not once did he cram his own view point or beliefs down our throats, nor dispute our beliefs and try to prove them wrong. He simply challenged us to stand up for what we believe in and to proclaim Christ."

As to the content, "[t]his article is absolutely horrendous and arrogantly annoying because,,,."

To which the author replied:

"So you do acknowledge that the headline was correct. Students really were fined if they didn’t want to listen to Beck. That is what makes this a problem. If Beck had spoken at a voluntary workshop on comparative religions, we wouldn’t be talking about this. That he was invited to a mandatory (with fines) service and preached a sermon is what makes this important.

"I don’t doubt that you and others weren’t offended, but that’s why we’re so concerned. We wouldn’t expect Beck or any false teacher to try to cram his beliefs down your throat. He would want you to willingly embrace his teachings, and he succeeded, at least judging by the warm applause he got throughout the sermon."

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Most excellent posting and take a look at the author's breakdown of the wordage Beck used. Even as an atheist it is important to look at the message being preached in order to understand the underlying agenda being put forth. Something I alluded to above in referencing the Nephilim, the underlying principle to that whole mess boils down to Us vs Them and there has been a whole lot of that in the news lately.

Liberty University fines students for not listening to cult leader ← Pajama Pages

Mormon Bishop Goes Undercover as Homeless Man to Teach about Compassion and Gratitude | KUTV.com

When this story first popped 10 days ago, I had mixed feelings. I still do.

The basic story line, an LDS bishop went undercover as a homeless man and greeted people to give a lesson in kindness and acceptance of others. It's not so much the reactions of his congregants, that I consider the norm, I think what bothers me is that he "had" to do this to prove a point: "The main thing I was trying to get across was we don’t need to be so quick to judge." Musselman said he wasn't trying to embarrass anyone or make them feel ashamed of themselves, he just wanted to remind them to be kind to people from all walks of life every day and not just the holidays. But how pathetic is it that he needed to dupe his church in order to teach a lesson. It makes me wonder what he is teaching that this was necessary, or is it a matter of his parishioners hearing vs listening.

A second issue I have, if "we" were to re-visit Musselman and his congregation in 12 months, how much of change would we see? Christ was pretty clear in his message: "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matt 25:44-46, NIV) So why is this a "lesson" that had to be learned?

If we are a so-called Christian country there would be no homeless, no orphanages and free hospitals/clinics. Conservative Christianity is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ, this bishop has taught his congregation an important lesson. But I wonder if their shame comes from the fact that their indifference was exposed for all to see, or if they woke up and were forced to look deep inside their hearts

I wont go far as to say that Mussleman played dress up and used the reality of other human beings pain and suffering to further his own interests or the agenda of his church. But I do struggle with his dressing up as a homeless person as being an offensive stunt. I would like to know what he will be doing to combat the issues of poverty and homelessness.

Mormon Bishop Goes Undercover as Homeless Man to Teach about Compassion and Gratitude | KUTV.com

President Emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary: Christians, Mormons ‘Need to Work Together’ | Christian News Network

PROVO, UT – The former president of Fuller Theological Seminary appeared at Utah Valley University on Friday, speaking to hundreds about his belief that Christians and Mormons should focus on common ground and “work together for the cause of righteousness.”

Dr. Richard Mouw served as president of the California-based seminary for 20 years, until he returned to his position as a Professor of Faith and Public Life this year. Mouw has been known among evangelicals for defending Mormons—namely asserting that Mormonism is not a cult—and seeking to build bridges and friendships with Latter Day Saints.

“I am now convinced that we evangelicals have often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community,” he stated in 2004 at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, asserting that Christians have been “bearing false witness” against Mormon doctrine. “[L]et me state it bluntly to the LDS folks here this evening: We have sinned against you.”

On Friday, Mouw reiterated his beliefs while addressing a crowd at Orem LDS Institute of Religion, located on the university campus.

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“[W]e evangelicals have often focused on the origins of the Book of Mormon and questions of Joseph Smith’s prophetic authority,” he said, “but we haven’t paid attention to the content of the Book of Mormon.”

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Groat said that Mouw is making a mistake by minimizing glaring doctrinal issues in order to forge friendships and working partnerships. In doing so, he said, Mouw is failing to give fellow Christians an accurate picture of the LDS faith.

“He knows,” Groat lamented. “And yet he continues to minimize the radical differences between Mormonism and Christianity that have eternal significance for people’s souls in favor of opening up dialogue based on superficial commonalities that seem to be only for temporal gain.”

President Emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary: Christians, Mormons ‘Need to Work Together’ | Christian News Network

A Top Mormon Leader Acknowledges the Church ‘Made Mistakes’ - NYTimes.com

One of the top leaders in the Mormon Church acknowledged in an address to the church’s global membership on Saturday that past leaders had “made mistakes” that had caused some Mormons to have doubts, an admission that amounts to a significant change in tone in the leadership’s approach to Mormons who question, dissent or defect from the church.

“We respect those who honestly search for truth,” President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the church’s top governing body, the first presidency, said in the speech.

The church has in the past excommunicated prominent scholars and even low-profile members who publicly voiced doubts about its history or theology, and many Mormons who have lost their faith have been shunned by their friends and family. But recently, with some Mormons taking to the Internet to share their doubts, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which now claims 15 million members, have been confronted with a bigger problem they could no longer ignore.

“We openly acknowledge that in nearly 200 years of church history — along with an uninterrupted line of inspired, honorable and divine events — there have been some things said and done that could cause people to question,” Mr. Uchtdorf said, speaking to 20,000 Mormons gathered for the 183rd semiannual general conference in Salt Lake City, and millions more watching telecasts and over the Internet.

A Top Mormon Leader Acknowledges the Church ‘Made Mistakes’ - NYTimes.com

Mitt Romney Campaign: We Will Not 'Be Dictated By Fact-Checkers'

I was drawn in by the headline and subject of the article,,,

"We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said at a panel organized by ABC News.

BUT the following comment really got my attention,,,

It's called "fleecing the gentiles".

“We can pick out Elders in Israel right here who can beat the world at gambling, who can handle the cards, cut and shuffle them with the smartest rogue on the face of God’s foot-stool. I can produce Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers, and take their money from them. We can beat the world at any game.” Brigham Young 1858

Mitt Romney Campaign: We Will Not 'Be Dictated By Fact-Checkers'

Mormon Studies Attracts More Scholars and Attention - NYTimes.com

 For a century and a half, Mormonism has been something of a paradox in the history of the American West: passionately argued about by the church’s adherents and detractors, but largely ignored by professional scholars unsure of what to make of the religion Joseph Smith founded in 1830 or the communities created by what Mormon scripture itself described as a “peculiar people.”

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Books relating to Mormon history are appearing in the catalogs of top academic presses, while secular universities are adding courses, graduate fellowships and endowed chairs.

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“Mormons have been seen as outliers, as oddities, as strange, as people who don’t seem to fit the American narrative,” said Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a professor of history at Harvard University who is working on a book about Mormon women. “But they end up illuminating some of the most important themes in our national history.”

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The latest scholarship builds on the so-called New Mormon history pioneered in the 1960s and ’70s, which aimed to advance a field long dominated by apologists and debunkers by focusing dispassionately on the facts.

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Other scholars are exploring the religious dimensions of plural marriage. In a widely noted 2009 lecture, Kathleen Flake, an associate professor of religious history at Vanderbilt University, argued that 19th-century Mormon plural marriage — while certainly not a happy experience for all women — was part of a broader ritual system that conveyed a reciprocal “priestly authority” on both men and women.





Mormon Studies Attracts More Scholars and Attention - NYTimes.com