Don Lattin Stories

From Agnostic
to Zoroastrian

A-Agnostic with Answers

B-Baptists v. Mormons in Salt Lake City

C-Carter - Interview with President Jimmy Carter

D-Death -- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Faces Her Own

E-Evangelist Billy Graham talks to Don Lattin

F-Francis of Assisi – In his home town

G-Gong – Falun Gong and China

H-Heaven’s Gate: The UFO Cult

I-Interview with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

J-Jerusalem at the New
Millennium

K-Kids in Cults

L-Lattin – Memories of Grandpa

M-Methodists Mix it Up

N-Nazareth on Christmas 1999

O-On the River Jordan

P-Pope John Paul II

Q-Questions about the Mormon’s Global Crusade

R-Rock n Roll for Jesus

S-Shameless Self-Promotion

T-Torah Rave

U-Unplugged

V-Very New Age

W-Women Transform American Church

X-X Generation Finds Jesus

Y-Your Tax Dollars and Charitable Choice

Z-Zoroastrian Christmas

Chasing the Divine

Huston Smith and the seekers of Trabuco Canyon
Huston Smith was at Berkeley working on his Ph.D. in 1945 when he stumbled upon the work of Gerald Heard, a British writer and philosopher—a man who would later be called “the grandfather of the New Age movement.”

Smith, who would later write The World’s Religions, a book first published in 1958 and still widely used as a religious studies text, had come to Berkeley from Chicago in 1944 with his wife, Kendra, and their daughter, Karen. He was already an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church and spent his weekends down on the Monterey Peninsula, where he had a part-time job leading Sunday services at a small church with a congregation composed mainly of local cannery workers.
California Magazine
Articles of Faith
Spring, 2011
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The New Believers

A surprising number of Asian Students are drawn to the supportive structure of
evangelical congregations.
Christian rock music blasts through the open doors of the Student Union as hundreds of Asian-American undergrads clamber up the stairs to a packed Pauley Ballroom. It’s the annual New Student Welcome Night hosted by three campus ministries run by Gracepoint Fellowship Church, a fast-growing Berkeley congregation that has redefined what it means to be a Christian at Cal in the early years of the new millennium.
California Magazine
Fall, 2009
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A Prophet in Purgatory

Photo by Trent Nelson
Will throwing the book at poly-gamist Warren Jeffs bust up his sect or be a boon to it?
Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006
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The Truth About “Big Love”

Photo by Lacey Terrell
"Big Love," the HBO series, is a big hit among some dissident members of Jeffs' sect, the
largest of several polygamist factions that refuse to accept the mainstream Mormon Church's long-standing decision to renounce the practice of plural marriage.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
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Gay Monogramous Couple
are Brains Behind Polygamy Show

Photo by Ron Batzdorff
Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the screenwriting team that created "Big Love," don't have a personal interest in Mormonism or polygamy, but they do know something about family lifestyles outside the American mainstream
Sunday, June 10, 2007
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Leary's Legacy

People still have issues with the Sixties.
It was a decade of idealism and divisiveness. Three years into the decade, Bob Dylan railed against mothers and fathers throughout the land. Don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Jim Morrison proclaimed we want the world, and we want it … now. Much of this can be explained by demographics and the arrogance of youth. Then there were the drugs, especially the psychedelic drugs.
California Magazine
Fall, 2010
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Choosing to be Chosen

Religious leaders gather
to challenge notions
of “Who is a Jew?”
Rabbi Capers Funnye, the spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, doesn't look Jewish—at least to some Jewish eyes.
California Magazine
July/August, 2008
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Mohammed Comes to
Holy Hill

Berkeley is fast becoming an American mecca for Islamic studies -- and a testing ground
to see if Jews, Muslims and other “passionate believers” can all get along.
California Magazine
January, 2009
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Saying “Hello” in Cairo

All I was trying to do was greet Mamdouh, the front esk clerk at my small hotel in the Garden City district of Cairo.
“Issallam ‘alaykum,’” I proudly proclaimed.
Momdouh return my morning greeting with a thin smile.
“We don't say that her,” he explained. ”this is a Chritian hotel. We say ‘sabah il-khayr‘ or ‘good morning.’”
Travel Writing
December, 2008
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Old Hippies and the
New Mainstream

It could happen on Tuesday. Finally. The end of the '60s counterculture.
All of us aging hippies and unrepentant cannabis connoisseurs will be forced to face the fact that "we" are "them." If Prop. 19 passes, and California legalizes the recreational use of marijuana, we must face the (rock) music and accept the fact that the counterculture is now the mainstream culture.
San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, October 29, 2010
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