When I first started our summer interview series with “Ask an Atheist” and “Ask a Catholic,” I immediately began receiving requests for “Ask a Mormon.” With everyone from Mitt Romney to Warren Jeffs making headlines these days, it’s no surprise that there is some confusion regarding the beliefs and practices of the LDS church.
Well now we get the chance to have our most pressing questions answered by a Mormon herself!
Jana Riess is the author or co-author of nine books, includingWhat Would Buffy Do? and the forthcoming memoir Flunking Sainthood (Nov.). She has a Ph.D. in American religious history from Columbia University and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. She says she is still trying to figure out why she bothered to get an M.Div. when she was just going to turn into a Mormon heretic in seminary anyway.
Jana is almost two years into a 3 ½ year project called the Twible (rhymes with Bible), in which she tweets one chapter of the Bible each morning with snarky commentary. (“It’s the Bible . . . now with 43% more humor!”) You can follow her project on Twitter at @janariess. Her Beliefnet blog, Flunking Sainthood,deals with Mormonism, popular culture, and whatever she happens to be reading.
If you have a question for Jana, leave it in the comment section. Remember that the point is not to debate or challenge, but to ask the sort of questions that will help us understand one another better. Please take advantage of the “like” feature so that we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to readers.
At the end of the day, I’ll pick the top seven or eight questions and send them to Jana. I'll post her responses to the questions when I get back from Bolivia.
Ask away!
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