The NIMBY mantra is automatic in most neighborhoods these days. If it is “big,” it gets challenged big time under the not-in-my-back yard political movement. And that goes for churches as it does for big-box stores and livestock operations.Scottsdale neighborhoods have been complaining about the development and construction of mega-churches — churches on large campuses with thousands of members, churches that often have plenty of programming day and night and all week long.

Parking and traffic understandably are the primary complaints.

Scottsdale City Council Tuesday night decided not to regulate WHERE churches can build. But Mayor Mary Manross said the council will have a chance to examine findings of a planning commission study on the impact of on neighborhoods of large gathering places, like churches.

We well know that throughout world and U.S. history, churches have been planted just about everywhere — among the people. Commonly, houses of worships have been regarded as integral to the family life of communities. They show up here and there like elementary schools. Churches are blended into the wider community and sprinkled across neighborhoods, usually through some pretty scientific demographics — a Catholic church here, the Methodists over there, Lutherans four blocks from there, and so on.

Denominations and dioceses often look at population projections and try to buy parcels as cheaply as possible in areas of future development, hoping to be perfectly positioned to “be there” when the new houses are built and filled with people — both those already adherents and the highly valuable “seekers” who would be attracted to their campuses and ministries.

Woe to a church that builds its campus too small and finds its congregants having to park all over the neighborhood. In many large cities, you find a church row, featuring one massive edifice after another up and down the streets. Many churches have their own parking ramps and underground parking.

Throughout the East Valley, there have been occasional complaints about churches erecting structures that dont blend well with neighbors structures. It happened in 2001 when The Living Word Bible Church on Brown Road in Mesa put up its three round domes, one a 2,000-seat sanctuary. Other fury has raged about bell towers and towering steel crosses that can be seen from back yards.

Many houses of worship provide easily accessible rooms for community and neighborhood meetings and election polling sites.

Predictably, the Scottsdale council heard from the faith community with a united appeal to not impose restrictions. The ramifications are obvious. An “unpopular” religion could be relegated to the boondocks.

One senses some anti-religion sentiment in some neighborhood opposition to houses of worship moving in. When Muslims began plans to build their mosque in Scottsdale, there was groveling that the neighborhood would have to repeatedly hear an imam calling believers to prayer from a minaret. There were complaints in Scottsdale that the masjid planners were standoffish about going into the neighborhood to explain their plans.

Mega-churches really arent trouble when their developers and city planners fully anticipate issues and plan to mitigate neighborhood impact. Neighbors should recognize there are a lot worst things than houses of faith across the street or alley.

Its not that often anymore, but sometimes you know whether the car in front of you is driven by a Lutheran, Baptist or Episcopalian. Some of the stickers affixed to the car may be small and subtle — perhaps just that Episcopalian symbol that mostly only other Episcopalians will recognize. Or maybe the flames from the United Methodists symbol. If theres a The Mass Never Ends sticker, you’re following a Catholic.Or maybe it is a straight-forward bumper sticker promoting ones church as a wholesome and wonderful family church. A few mega-churches seem to be the only ones anymore who tout themselves with bumper stickers. Obviously there must be some reluctance or restraint from the faith community to advertise or proselytize with bumper stickers. Or maybe theres second thoughts about being seen speeding or cutting in and out of traffic with a Beautiful Savior Baptist Church bumper sticker on one’s tail.

My wifes car displays the common Christian fish symbol, not to be confused with the atheists’ Darwin fish symbol, which simply adds two feet to the fish.

With modern plastic bumpers on vehicles, bumper stickers generally seem to be in sharp decline. Still there are some pretty direct spiritual messages out there like “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter or Life is Short. Pray Hard or As Long As There Are Tests, There will be Prayer in Public Schools.

I must admit that the landscape of America when I was a kid — in the 1950s and 1960s — was more “informative” and provocative. And I miss massive signs that covered the sides of farm barns at curves in the road, the Burma Shave message signs (A poetic maxim spread out on six or seven small signs) and the wider number of billboards before Keep America Beautiful reduced them.

Travel any distance and there was surely a foreboding biblical quote like The wages of sin is death Romans 6:23.

These days I read the signs on the interstates proclaiming what organizations clean up debris along various miles of roadway. Sometimes they are religious congregations — often a project for youth groups or ambitious retirees.

I relish pulling up to a stop behind a vehicle plastered with stickers. I hope it is a long light so I can read all the messages and find something thoughtful or provocative. I admire such gall, such shameless messaging.

A lot of wonderful religious bumper stickers on the market just seemingly don’t get put on the cars on my roadway: Life is Short. Pray Hard, This Car is Prayer-Conditioned, The Road to Heaven is a One-Way Street, Go to Church. Dont Wait for the Hearse to Take You, How Would Jesus Drive?, Separate Church and Hate, Jesus is God With Skin On, In Case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned, Are You As Close to Jesus as You Are to My Bumper Sticker?, Who Would Jesus Bomb? and “Lord Help Me to Be the Person My Dog Thinks I Am.

The occupation of ones spouse can be blessing or a curse, a delight or a burden. Or the spouses vocation may be of little consequence. And then theres being the wife of a clergyman — a pastors spouse.Theyre promoting the 7th annual First Lady Conference in Dallas in June where pastors’ wives are invited for some frank and insightful lectures and workshops on coping with their roles. Organizers point to surveys of spouses of senior pastors that found 84 percent felt unqualified and discouraged in their roles. Four in five felt left out or unappreciated by church members. The survey found three of five wives wished they had pastor-wife training to better serve their congregations from their distinctive positions.

Fifty-six percent of wives revealed they have no close friends in their churches. Not surprisingly 21 percent want more privacy.

Lois Evans, wife of the the Rev. Tony Evans, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church, one of Dallas’ largest, has organized the June conference. She says she never wanted to be a pastors wife and cannot forget what she endured in the early days of her husbands ministry. Now she leads First Lady Ministry to help wives make the most of their special “position” in life.

You know the burdens.

Pastors wives have to be model spouses with perfectly behaved children. They should be seen a lot on campus — prominently in the sanctuary for Sunday worship, ubiquitous in the womens ministries and circles and at the center of some special church ministry or outreach, probably involving children — or the pastors pet ministry that needs a dependable hands-on coordinator.

How she dresses or how her children behave are watched. She get leaned on and lobbied by some seeking to get the pastors ear or support for something. Once she immerses herself in a church activity or program — womens ministry, classroom teaching or choir, for example, she hears a lot of gossip and groveling, some of it related to her pastor-husband performance or actions.

Some pastor wives intentionally stay as clear of the church life as possible without appearing to be detached and uncaring. Some have busy, professional lives that make being an at-the-ready spouse impossible.

Because ministers often sprinkle their sermons with anecdotes and family-and-hearth stories, eyes fall on the wives when the pastor finishes the story. All too many pastors’ wives labor in outside jobs in the early years of their husbands’ ministries when they shepherd small congregations, looking after small children and often in some de facto assistant pastor roles. If it is a smaller congregation, she may get the church secretary duties by default.

Theyre being called “first ladies for the Dallas conference. It may sound patronizing. I have known more than a few pastors wives, and they would flinch about generalizations. Most are well-educated, thick-skinned, true partners in ministry, and able to find some distance between their work, styles and opinions and those of their husbands.

And the amazing stories they alone could really tell us …

Irish Catholicism holds a special place in the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, what with the many priests who emigrated from Ireland in the last century to beef up the leadership in parishes here. So what happened on Easter Sunday in Drogheda on the eastern coast of Ireland north of Dublin is causing quite a buzz among both traditionalist Catholics and those seeking a ray of light for reform. It is said there was an ecumenical Mass.Scandalous, of course, say uncompromising Catholics. Seems a Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest concelebrated Mass with three Roman Catholic priests at the Augustinian priory. It reportedly came about through the invitation of a former Augustinian prior. It drew some 1,000 people.

Not surprisingly both the Catholics and the Anglicans are investigating it, and consequences seem certain to follow.

Afterall, interfaith worship in the 21st Century is just too much for ancient religions needing to maintain purity.

According to news reports, the Catholics Archbishop Sean Brady of the Archdiocese of Armagh quickly issued this statement: True ecumenism is best served by initiatives that are respectful of, and sensitive to, the traditions, ethos and discipline of all those involved. Otherwise there is a real danger of causing widespread confusion, raising false hopes and creating situations that are open to misunderstanding and manipulation.

Tell that to all the clergy of hundreds of religious faiths today who regularly hold special ecumenical and interfaith gatherings that transcend their individual faiths’ theology and teachings.

False hopes? Confusion?

Hardly. Many major faiths have worked out joint communion accommodations.

The Irish press is calling it the “unholy row over Mass.” It’s all the talk in Ireland.

The Anglicans’ Archbishop Robin Eames seemed to echo his Catholic counterpart in responding to the comingling of faiths: Unfortunately, such occasions, while well-intentioned, can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations at a time when relations between our churches have improved so much, he said.

Organizers of the Mass were seeking to mark the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Monday Rising, an uprising by Irish seeking independence from Britain while the nation was preoccupied with fighting World War I. The Mass honored Irish deaths in that war, as well.

Up to 20 members of the Church of Ireland congregation attended the Mass and received Holy Communion, according to reports, and an Anglican priest, Rev. Michael Graham, took part fully in the consecration of the sacrament.” One clergyman called the event a magnificent occasion.

A press story noted, Rev. Graham was greeted with prolonged applause by the large congregation when he appeared on the altar. He later told the worshippers that ‘this is the first public celebration in Drogheda of the Eucharist by a Catholic priest of the Anglican tradition in a Catholic church of the Roman tradition since the Reformation.’”

Pretty historical stuff.

It all conjures the still unresolved firestorm in Gilbert two years ago where a Gilbert priest was alleged to have let an Anglican priest participate in the Eucharist during a wedding. The bishop sent the matter to Rome, which responded, “Take care of it back home. Everyone is still waiting for that decision.

So an ecumenical Mass in Ireland, for some, is too perverse to consider.

We’re just an awfully long way from common ground — and common sense — in Christian unity.

I recently got the chance to screen the new film Church Ball, the latest movie by HaleStorm Entertainment, which has a growing list of films with themes related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Past films have included Singles Ward and The Best Two Years, a flick about newly returned Mormon missionaries readjusting to the old scene.Church Ball, which began showing in a few Valley theaters on April 14, including Gilbert Stadium 14 in Gilbert and Superstition Springs 25 in Mesa, has several well-known actors, including Fred Willard, playing a ward bishop, and Gary Coleman (Different Strokes), who is a member of the Mud Lake church basketball team.

Unlike past HaleStorm films I have seen, Church Ball strikingly lacks the Mormon cultural flavor of the past films. The misfits and cutups who make up the Mud Lake team do some pretty mean things in the course of the story. Promoters say Church Ball was written and filmed in a way that would be inclusive of all audiences, and they liken it to the past hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding that gave insight about a specific culture in a way thats inclusive and funny, not alienating and esoteric.

In the 91-minute films story, Dennis Buckstead is called on to coach a group of non-athletic players of his church and told by the soon-to-retire bishop that the team must win the basketball league championship after 20-years of bleak play. Not to mentioned that it would be the last season of church basketball and the last time to snag a title.

What follows is a lot of bending and breaking rules to make a championship follow. Bishop Linderman himself had been suspended from coaching early on for violent behavior and that guilt has been a heavy weight on the Mud Lakers for most of two decades.

Much of the film is dealing with the flaws and behaviors of the team. Theres lots of twisting arms to get people to play or and just plain get coordinated even if they dont like each other.

The HaleStorm media kit offers some interesting facts about church basketball. The Mormon leagues began early in the 1900s as recreation for members. In 1922, the first church basketball tournament was organized in Salt Lake City.

Tournaments were a huge part of church basketball, said Paul Eagleston, a script writer. Winning teams would play first in stake tournaments, then go on to regional tournaments and finally to the all-church basketball basketball tournament that was televised and heavily attended by church members.

It notes how important it has been for church meetinghouses to be designed to include a full-size basketball court next to the chapel to support games for the church-sponsored teams.

Basketball was a viewed as an effective way to cultivate fellowship among members of the church, and a natural way to reach out to potential converts, Eagleston notes, adding that the church has been mindful in dispatching missionaries on special assignments in other nations to play basketball to build such goodwill and provide common ground for evangelizing.

Stephen Rose, another co-writer, notes, however, that church ball drifted way from what it was originally intended to be, and all-church tournaments were disbanded in the early 1970s. Basketball is, and was, a very competitive sport that often brought out the worst in good, strong LDS members, he said. And the fact that this kind of unnecessary aggression and violence happened right next to the chapel where members worshipped is what makes the film humorous — and ironic.

If you like church brawl — I mean church ball — take a look.

“Shameless is a powerful word. Its the label we can put on an outrageous action that is open to others view and reaction and disdain. The act is shameless because the perpetrator does it in defiance of ethics, customs or laws. It is barefaced, flagrant and bold. And it is usually judged as wrong.People in power and authority, often with high profile, are prone to a lot of shameless acts, including reckless public policy and callous remarks. TV evangelist Pat Robertson especially comes to mind with his repeated offensive comments. The media, of course, are especially ready to practice gotcha and are quick to spot and report shameless actions.

I never failed to be amazed by how many clumsy, insensitive actions against religion are done by people who should know better.

It can be a fast-food restaurant chain demanding a Muslim female forgo her hijab, or head covering, or a boss telling his secretary to not wear a cross or a star of David around her neck. Its event planners failing to look at calendars and religious holidays before scheduling what will create a conflict for adherents to faiths.

How about the arrogance of condominium managers to bar condo owners from religious objects on their homes or outdoor spaces? Recently Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed into law a measure to ensure religious displays. It won’t allow what happened to a Jewish woman who came home from her husbands funeral and saw that the condominium management company had removed a mezuzah from her doorpost. The tiny case, typically posted sideways by a door, contains a scroll bearing a text of the Torah and is a very common, ancient fixture of Jewish life. It is a reminder that the Judaic laws and teachings guide life in the house.

On the world stage, governments shamelessly bar religious groups from evangelical work. With caprice and arrogance, they dictate what groups can be allowed or who must be registered and given strict rules on procedures to share their teachings. Governments sharply limit evangelical activities, thus protecting their people from being drawn into alien religions. “Illegal missionary activity will always go on in defiance of repressive governments hostile to free thought and self-realization.

Pressure, shame and economic actions should be leveled on nations unwilling to permit a free exchange of ideas or the free exercise of religion.

How encouraging to see the world outcry last month over the case in Afghanistan of Abdul Rahman, 41, who had converted to Christianity 14 years ago, had kept it secret, but got outed as a Christian. How unacceptable and revolting that a court could, or would, condemn a man to death for abandoning the state faith of Islam, especially in the face of American soldiers serving and dying in their nation for the their freedom and nascent democracy.

Its beyond shameless.

Theres no stopping those who feel compelled to spread their faith — be it Mormon, Islamic, Pentecostal, Jehovahs Witness or Methodist. Evangelism should be civil and orderly. If faith conversions break up monolithic faiths of individual families or communities, so be it. Ones daughter is not instantly dead or to be shunned because she now professes a different belief.

I will not accept the notion that her soul is now lost.

It comes down to freedom of conscience. Potential adherents have a duty to listen to their heads and hearts, be discriminating in the quest for truth, have the courage to challenge and even turn down the proselytizers. It can be messy and fearful.

And it can be shameful when people ultimately gets swept up into faith groups that they really didnt want and from which they feel they cannot escape.

So choose carefully and then live fully and authentically in what you believe.

Its called Eastertide, the days and weeks after Easter Sunday when the joy of Easter and resurrection sweeps Christians along toward Pentecost, which comes 50 days after Easter, or June 4 this year.Pentecost, the so-called “birthday of the church,” celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the apostles and Christs followers 10 days after his ascension to heaven. Pentecost marks the official launch of the Christian faith by its first devotees.

Eastertide runs seven weeks until Pentecost, according to the Christian liturgical calendar.

Next Sunday, April 23, is known as Low Sunday. The name is believed to be derived from the fact that by the time a week had passed after Easter, believers may have been low, or down in the dumps, that they would have to regroup now without Christ. Things would never be the same.

For many churches, Low Sunday is a low-attendance Sunday. Regulars take the Sunday off to recover from all the extra demands placed on them during Lent and Holy Week. Of course, those of the Christmas-and-Easter crowd are missing again. After all, they wouldn’t be back two Sundays in a row.

Low Sunday has also been known as White Sunday, Quasimodo Sunday, Alb Sunday, Antipascha Sunday and Sunday, according to Wikipedia. And since 1970, Low Sunday has been officially known as the Second Sunday of Easter in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II further designated it Divine Mercy Sunday.

The Fellowship of Merry Christians calls for churches to spend Low Sunday in a free-wheelin’ good time. They’ve renamed it “Holy Humor Sunday” or “Bright Sunday with the call to ham it up. Choirs can surprise the congregation by playing kazoos or showing up in bathrobes instead of choir robs. Some churches have put out sleeping bags for people who want to sleep during sermons that day.

Yet with Easter now past, it is a time for pastors and church leaders to take stock of the impact that Lent and Holy Week had on their faith communities.

Did they reach new people with the Word? With the carefully crafted Easter sermon? Was the Easter experience uplifting enough or so compelling that visitors will return again?

Enormous energies were expended to make the Easter experience. What do they have to show for it?

Easter came three weeks later this year, so the unofficial end of the church year — usually about the time that regular school dismisses for the summer — will come quicker.

Now most church staff are taking time to recoup, even taking some days off. The remaining weeks of spring will be used to close out the Sunday school year, hold mother-daughter banquets, celebrate the work of volunteers and take care of those last things that will get maximum attendance before folks scatter for the summer.

Look for the hard-core church-goers to be there this Sunday — unless, of course, some Christmas-and-Easter Christians show up, committed to a new habit, and opt to see what goes on there the rest of the church year.

The American religious landscape is a curious thing. Thanks to a website that colors American counties on a map according to each faith group’s relative membership dominance, we can quickly see the general distribution of believers.Check out how Regions of Mind has mapped religions in America: regionsofmind.blog-city.com.

It is based on the 2000 U.S. Census and was developed by Glenmary Research Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The mapping surely confirms that Baptists dominate the so-called Bible Belt — the American South. Lutherans reign in the Upper Midwest. Mormons thrives most in Utah and Idaho, and Jews in Florida, the Atlantic Seaboard and pockets of California. Methodists are most prolific across the center of the country from the Plain States to the East Coast. Yet the Methodists are about as ubiquitous as any faith.

On the pure basis of what parts of the country have the highest rate of affiliation to some houses of worship, the West was relatively light except for Utah, parts of Texas and the Dakotas. The Plain States generally stood more religious than the regions farther West. The Mid-Atlantic and part of the South were also strong.

Analysts found Catholics domination was no surprise, the states bordering on Mexico, especially Texas, New Mexico and California, along with New England, Louisiana and the Upper Midwest states from Wisconsin through the Dakotas.

Also selected out for mapping are Mennonites, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, the two major Lutheran groups, Quakers and Muslims.

Some rural counties are anomalies because they may have only one or two churches. Thus, if there is just a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod church there, the county wears the LCMS label. Ethnic settlement in previous centuries explain much of the patterning.

Maricopa County comes off as place where 35 to 50 percent of the populace say they belong to a congregation. Only Santa Cruz and Graham rise to the next level of 50 to 75 percent of the population.

In a largest-takes-all mapping, Arizona is entirely Catholic, except for Coconino and Apache counties, which are claimed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which completely gets all of Utah to the north.

Episcopalians are noticeably missing as a group from the mapping.

Finally, take away Catholics, Baptists, Mormons and Lutherans which dominate largest patches, and there would not be much color left on the American map until they started over with the next layer of faiths.

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin was a three-name theologian like the great ones: Martin Luther King, Harry Emerson Fosdick and Robert McAfee Brown.The clergyman who fought war, civil rights injustice, poverty and hatred in the tumult of the 20th century, died Wednesday in Vermont at the age of 81. He was a relentless great mind for justice and peace. Against racial injustice and the Vietnam War, he employed the tools of civil disobedience and got arrested. What set him apart was his articulate voice, his quick turn of phrases and his ferocity of purpose. He exuded respect, urgency, clear-sightedness.Coffin, a one-time Yale University classmate and friend of President George H.W. Bush, made a lot of headlines during his 18 years as Yales chaplain and then as the fourth senior pastor (1977-87) of The Riverside Church in New York City. The self-proclaimed Christian revolutionary and one-time civil-rights Freedom Rider came to my Tempe church in March 1989 where he decried the military arms race. That night at University Presbyterian Church, he began by lifting up a thin cast-iron plaque sitting on the inside front of the pulpit, proclaiming, Sir, that we would see Jesus." (John 12:21) For all who spoke there, it was a reminder that their words should seek to reflect Christs message.Oddly one Sunday morning in April 2005, I was chosen to give a laymans sermon in that same pulpit where I reflected on 40 years of journalism and 15 years of religion writing in connection with scripture tied to the Road to Emmaus. As a gift for that sermon, the pastor presented me with Coffins book Credo, a 173-page collection of the written and spoken words of Coffins noble and forceful life. It was touted as the wisdom of an American prophet.Just a few of the gems: All nations make decisions based on self-interest and then defend them in the name of morality. Believers know that while our values are embodied in tradition, our hopes are always located in change. In the United States, grim poverty is a tragedy that great wealth makes a sin. Compassion and justice are companions, not choices. Ninety-eight percent of people in prison in the United States lived in poverty most of their lives. Nearly one of every 150 people in this country is imprisoned, a number no other democracy come close to matching. Not to take sides is effectively to weigh in on the side of the stronger. Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.I dug out the article I wrote for the Tribune about Coffins talk in Tempe. At the time, the Presbyterian pastor was president of Sane/Freeze peace organization (now Peace Action), whose state chapter was Arizona Center to Reverse the Arms Race. He asserted that the superpowers preoccupation with the arms race was draining national treasuries. Oddly, he said the Cold War had eased up and the Soviet Union and the U.S. were now more friendly, but poverty and U.S. urban decay gave the look that an invading army had passed through our cities.Today the whole world lives on the target of World War III. No hamlet on earth lies outside the orbit of conflict. The whole world is a prisoner of itself and awaits the uncertain moment of execution, he said.Those words may seem dated what with the collapse of the the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He asked nations to increase global loyalty by giving up some of their sovereignty and backing off nationalistic interests to protect mankind and the planet. Coffin has many distinctions: He was one of four clergyman permitted in 1979 to visit the U.S. hostages being held in Iran. Cartoonist Gary Trudeau, in his Doonesbury political comic strip, created the liberal character, the Rev. Scot Sloan, based on Coffin. He was first married to a daughter of the legendary classic pianist Arthur Rubinstein. When his only son was killed in a car accident and people used the tired line, "It was Gods will, he responded, God is crying, too. In 2004, Coffin told a Religion and Ethics newsweekly interviewer on PBS, I don’t think you have to be self-conscious about your prayer life. If you can live in wonder and gratitude and with a sense of wanting to respond — responsible means ‘respond-able,’ able to respond ….Ifyou’re able to respond to beauty in nature, you’ll be an environmentalist. If you’re able to respond to human beings’ basic right to peace, you’ll be a peacenik. Its a matter of being full of wonder, thanksgiving and praying for strength to respond to all the wonder and beauty there is in human life.His strength was his courage and spirit, and when they shut down the coffin on Coffin, we’ll realize his voice will resonate through our consciousness for decades to come in that eternal cry for peace and justice.

The annual Easter pageant on the grounds of the Mesa Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been enjoying mild weather and no rain, but there is plenty of stormy debate on the sidelines.Now only a few nights remain until the Jesus The Christ presentation for 2006 is over. The free, 75-minute presentations begin at 8 p.m. through April 15 at the temple, 525 E. Main St., Mesa.

This year, as always, the pageant is visited by street preachers and protesters, who take up places along the sidewalks and proclaim the Mormon faith a false religion. Many members of the church engage them in conversation, but most ignore their angry talk.

Mike Palmer is back despite complaints that he gets assaulted in his witness work. The Glendale man informed the Tribune before the pageant that he has been the victim of religious persecution at the Mormon temple. He calls himself one of the Christians being persecuted by the Mormons. Saying he is labeled anti-Mormon, Palmer contends, I love the Mormon people. Thats why I do what I do.

Im really a Christian evangelist, he explained. Like the prophets of old, I warn Mormons that their god is not the god of the Bible — with the attendant consequences — so that theyre not ignorant and can decide for themselves whom they want to follow.

Palmer has been at the temple grounds many years at Easter and for the annual Christmas lights doing his own teaching and witnessing.

And like the prophets of old, sometimes I suffer, he said. For a decade, he said Mormons have allowed him to exercise his free speech on the public sidewalk. However, in the past few years, the violence has been escalating, and Mormons havent been very American, he said in his letter to me on March 31. Palmer said he gets assaulted about once a year and reports those to police. Hes even had someone shoot a blow dart at him.

In December, he said, a woman punched him in the eye and nose, and he was later treated for a detached retina and had surgery. His vision continues to be poor in that eye.

I fully expect I might be murdered someday near the temple by an angry Mormon, Palmer said.

Craig Ray, a Mormon, who has long served as a self-appointed watchdog of the detractors of his faith, has been talking actively with the whole group of street preachers this year, trading scriptures and trying to out-Bible them.

“There are the fundamental things that we disagree with, Ray said, including salvation and godhood. I can take a scripture and say I believe this interpretation of that scripture and you interpret it a different way. That is what gives us two different religions. I can do that all through the Bible and you can do that all through the Bible and we can come up with the scriptures that we differ on interpretation.”

Still, he insists, the overarching message that Ray tries to impress on the church’s critics, mostly with Street Preachers Fellowship, is that “God loves us and God put us here and we are to do good unto others.

In his love-thy-enemy style, Ray likes to point out where they have common ground.

Still, it can be a sideshow when the final prayer is said at the end of the pageant and people begin leaving the grounds. Then the hand-held loud-speakers or megaphones begin proclaiming the real truth.