By now, members of Robert Bennion’s Mormon congregation know exactly what’s on the agenda when the stocky, 57-year-old bishop asks someone to leave the church grounds and walk across the street with him for a quick tête-à-tête. More likely than not, he’s got gays on his mind and a proposition to make. Don’t worry; it’s not what it sounds. More likely than not, Bennion is about to [...]

It wasn't until I was standing on a corner in Lisbon last week that I realized how little information I had about Antonio, the man supposed to pick me up five minutes earlier. I knew only that he was A. male and B. a practitioner of Umbanda, the voodoo-esque religion that originated in Brazil.

Antonio, according to the plans we made the day before, was to take me to [...]

Alistair Carmichael, a Scottish MP, can't help but shake his head when the name Stuart Hill is mentioned. Hill is the infamous 65-year-old pseudo-revolutionary who recently claimed one of the Shetland Islands as his own, declared it an independent nation, and seceded from the UK.

While media outlets all over the world have flocked to the story like alcoholics to an open bar, Carmichael is underwhelmed, if not completely nonplussed [...]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints officially announced this week its support for an amendment to California's constitution that would effectively ban gay marriage in one of the nation's most liberal states.

In a letter to be read out in Mormon churches all across California, LDS leaders urged members to “do all you can ... by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage is legally [...]

The National Lottery faces a radical overhaul if the Tories win power at the next election with proceeds from games to be funnelled directly into the arts, sport, heritage and charities, Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has told newstatesman.com.

“The Labour Party has been treating the lottery like its own personal piggy bank, using it to fund pet projects that are clearly areas of government responsibility,” said Hunt. “The result [...]

No discussion of Mormonism, even one as aimless and amorphous as this, would be complete without mentioning the most visible—and arguably most annoying—aspect of the LDS Church: the missionaries.

Like an incredibly awkward, acne-riddled army, these teenagers and twentysomethings leave their families, jobs, educations and the occasional girlfriend to travel the world, selling Jesus door-to-door for two full years. During that time, Mormon missionaries live like monks; they give up [...]

Every religion seems to have its own specialty, that one aspect of worship it just seems to perform better than anyone else. Gregorian monks have their chanting, Southern Baptists have their choirs, and we Mormons have the blessed gift of organisation. Not since the fall of the Soviet Union have so many committees, subcommittees and sub-subcommittees been organised, disbanded, and subsequently reorganised in order to complete simple, day-to-day tasks.

The [...]

Ever since Mitt Romney, a practising Mormon, began showing up at Republican presidential debates with his immaculately quaffed hair and robotic pseudo-personality, the general public has been paying a lot more attention to the LDS Church, a faith that until recently was easily dismissed as yet another creepy cult from the Western United States.

In my humble opinion as the lowest-ranking writer at the New Statesman, Mormonism is still largely [...]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon church, was formally organised in April of 1830 by Joseph Smith in a rural section of upstate New York. At that time, the congregation was small enough to meet inside a single farmhouse.

As their numbers grew, Smith and company began to move west in search of more space and eventually set up settlements in the [...]

Sitting across the table from Jah Wobble, it's rather hard to believe this mild-mannered, conservatively dressed gentleman is the world-famous dub musician that once ran with the Sex Pistols and is rumoured - he insists unfoundedly - to have set his former drummer on fire.

Truth be told, with a white button-down and a nondescript pair of jeans, he looks like someone who should be picking the kiddies up [...]