The pulpit and politics in my church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – rarely come together. Ranking religious institutions and political involvement on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most politically active, my church is likely to be rated a 2 or 3 on the scale.

My church affirms it’s political neutrality. However, it maintains the right to speak out on social and moral issues that affect the Church and families. And occasionally the Church encourages action.

Most recently, our church leaders are encouraging members to vote YES on Proposition 8 in California to provide a legal definition of marriage being between a man and a woman. LDS.org, the Church’s website, offers various links to discussions and information on this issue.

One point made in the discussions is the idea of the “Tyranny of Tolerance” – when tolerance is redefined to mean acceptance rather than love.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Latter-day Saint church leader, clarifies and reminds us what “tolerance” means:

“Tolerance obviously requires a non-contentious manner…

I’m always way behind in my New Yorker reading, so I just got around to reading a great essay by Jill Lepore - a history professor at Harvard - in the April 14 issue of the magazine.

The essay surveys some recent books about religious liberty and the founding of America. Here’s a long-ish excerpt that gives the reader a glimpse of where Lepore is going in the essay:

History is after all only a pack of tricks we play on the dead,” Voltaire once quipped. The Founding Fathers had their own pack of tricks: they turned their backs on the past. If they had meekly inherited the faith of their fathers, they would have written a constitution establishing Christianity as the national religion. They did not.Nearly every American colony was settled with an established religion; Connecticut’s 1639 founding document explained that the whole purpose of government was “to mayntayne and presearve the liberty and…