Lucifer's Lantern

  When most people think about Mormon missionary work, they picture young men in white shirts and ties, or young women with missionary name tags. That image exists for a reason. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operates the largest missionary program in the world. But missionaries are only one part of the church's outreach. For decades, the church has also invested heavily in television, radio, and internet advertising, developing a style that has evolved dramatically over time. During the 1980s and 1990s, many LDS television commercials felt more like public service announcements than traditional advertisements. Rather than directly asking viewers to join the church, these commercials usually told short stories. Children often found themselves in situations where they had to choose between honesty and dishonesty or learn lessons about kindness, responsibility, and family relationships. Because family is such a central part of LDS theology, many advertisements emphas...

I think we can all agree that the Book of Mormon is probably one of the most controversial publications ever produced. Every single aspect of it is debated. You have apologists who firmly believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that it is an ancient record of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas, and that it was given to Joseph Smith by an ancient American prophet named Moroni, who appeared as an angel. Or you have critics like myself who firmly believe that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century publication. But even beyond that, there are countless debates about the actual content of the book itself. One of the biggest is its historical setting. Where was the Book of Mormon actually supposed to take place? Some apologists and critics believe the narrative largely unfolded in North America , in places that would eventually become the United States. Others argue that it took place in S outh America or Central America. Historically, the LDS Church has even presented evidence t...

     For generations, Utah has lived with a peculiar countdown. Along the western edge of the Wasatch Mountains lies the Wasatch Fault , an active fault system stretching roughly 240 miles through the state's most densely populated corridor. Scientists can't predict when the next major earthquake will occur, but they agree that another large event is inevitable.      The Utah Geological Survey estimates there is a 43% chance of a magnitude 6.75 or greater earthquake somewhere along the Wasatch Front within the next 50 years, and better than a 50% chance of a magnitude 6.5 or greater earthquake during that same period. A magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the Salt Lake City segment alone is projected to cause thousands of fatalities, tens of thousands of injuries, and billions of dollars in damage. In Utah, "The Big One" isn't viewed as a matter of if, but when . It's the disaster everyone is encouraged to prepare for, even if nobody knows whether it will happen t...

For decades, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who received their temple endowment on the same calendar day were given the same "new name." Since January 1, 1965, the name assigned to a patron has been determined almost entirely by two factors: their gender and the day of the month. A man endowed on the 12th of any month, for example, would receive the same name as every other man endowed on the 12th, regardless of the temple or country.  That system quietly changed in June 2026. According to the independently maintained Temple Name Oracle database , the Church has retained the same list of male and female names, but it no longer assigns them to fixed calendar dates. Instead, the names now follow a rotating sequence that changes each month. Male and female name pairs remain linked together, but the pair assigned on one date in June may appear on a different date in July.  The change means that simply knowing a person's endowment date is no longer ...

In April 2026, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its intellectual property arm, Intellectual Reserve, filed a federal lawsuit against the Open Stories Foundation and John Dehlin. The complaint alleges trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and consumer confusion arising from the use of the name Mormon Stories, its branding, and its use of Church-related images.      The Church portrays the case as a straightforward effort to protect its trademarks and prevent confusion among people seeking information about the faith. Mormon Stories sees the case very differently. In its response and counterclaim , the organization argues that the Church is attempting to claim ownership over a word that belongs to an entire religious movement while using intellectual property law against one of its most visible critics. Here are the major arguments at the center of the dispute.

At first glance, The First Book of Napoleon: The Tyrant of the Earth  (1809) by Eliakim the Scribe (likely a pseudonym of Michael Linning) appears to be nothing more than a biblical retelling of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. However... although The First Book of Napoleon and the Book of Mormon describe vastly different peoples, places, and historical events, both books present a remarkably similar explanation for the rise and fall of civilizations.  One of the most recognizable themes in the Book of Mormon is commonly call the " pride cycle ." Throughout the Nephite record, societies prosper when they are faithful to God. Prosperity eventually leads to complacency, complacency gives rise to pride, pride produces wickedness, and wickedness brings suffering and destruction. Affliction humbles the people, leading to repentance and a return to righteousness before the cycle begins again. Eliakim the Scribe similarly argues that political collapse is m...

The U.S. Department of Defense recently found itself at the center of an unexpected religious controversy after restructuring the way it categorizes faith groups within the military. In an effort to simplify its system, the Pentagon reduced more than 200 religious affiliation codes to just 31 broader categories. The initial version of the new list grouped many denominations under explicitly Christian classifications, including Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, appeared outside those Christian categories. miltary.com The reaction from many Latter-day Saints was immediate. ABC4 Utah Utah politicians publicly criticized the change, church members voiced their frustration online, and critics of Mormonism pointed to the classification as evidence that even the federal government did not view the faith as Christian. Facing mounting criticism, the Department of ...

I recently started putting together xmormon.org , a sister site to luciferslantern.com. The focus of the site is pretty straightforward: collecting the stories of ex-Mormons throughout history and building a resource center for people who have left the church. The basic premise is that people have been leaving Mormonism since the earliest days of the church. If you’ve left, or you’re in the middle of figuring out what leaving means for you, you’re not the first person to walk that road. You won’t be the last either. Because I'm impatient and want to get this ball rolling, I’m using Wikipedia’s Creative Commons license to get initial articls poated. This license allows existing articles to be copied and adapted as long as the license requirements are followed. From there, I’m giving each article a more standard format, then adding context, cleanup, and workikg to add original material over time. I’m just one guy, so this seemed like the most realistic way to start building the site ...

A review of General Conference discourse in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reveals an interesting shift. Temples have always been mentioned more often than tithing, but the gap has widened dramatically in recent decades. References to tithing appear to be steadily declining, while references to temples have skyrocketed. The question is why. Data was pulled in 2024 from www.lds-general-conference.org  The 2020 dataset sees a large decline in both Tithing and Temple references due to only being halfway through the decade In the nineteenth century, church leaders spoke openly about tithing because the church needed money. The institution faced repeated financial strain. The Panic of 1893 damaged the Utah economy, and federal legislation such as the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887 resulted in the confiscation of church property. Under those conditions, leaders frequently urged members to contribute financially. That urgency faded once the church stabilized its finances. In...

 This series looks back at how early critics of the church reacted to the rise of Mormonism. Some mocked it, others warned against it, and a few tried to make sense of it. Each post features a historical excerpt and some brief context to show how critics viewed the new faith as it was unfolding.  -The full series can be found  here - This article titled “The March of Mormonism” was published on July 1, 1831, in the Lockport Balance , a western New York newspaper printed by J. Mills. It appeared at a transitional moment in early Mormon history, just as Joseph Smith and a core group of followers were relocating from New York to northeastern Ohio.  Less than a year after the publication of the Book of Mormon in March 1830, the movement had shifted from a small regional body in the Palmyra–Manchester area to a community organizing migration around new revelations. The immediate scriptural backdrop to this relocation appears in Doctrine and Covenants 37 (December 1830...

Click here  for part 1! Following some initial audio/visual difficulties (which drove my professional A/V friend crazy), the Peacemaker Summit finally got underway with some introductory remarks by Marla Gale, the event sponsor, then by Travish Lish and Christian Williams, the co-owners of The Holy Rebellion social media accounts. What followed over the next several hours were eight keynote addresses and a lunch break. Alternatively, skip to the end to see my final thoughts. In summarizing and evaluating each speaker , I'm employing the rubric below (I am a teacher, after all): Does the speaker... have a consistent thesis related to the stated mission of the conference? clearly articulate an application of content creation online? rigorously demonstrate an actionable metric for peacemaking? utilize a high-quality and engaging presentational format? Christian Williams: "The Accusatory Fog & Two Ineffective Responses" @theholyrebellion Christian begins his address the ...