-- Mar 7, 2003
The Church was granted legal recognition by government officials in Benin, a French-speaking West African coastal nation between Togo and Nigeria. (1)
-- Mar 12, 2003
[Utah] Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who'd vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters. (2)
-- Mar 15, 2003
The first meetinghouse in Guyana, an English-speaking Caribbean nation, was dedicated in Georgetown, the capital city. (1)
-- Mar 16, 2003
[U.S. Religious History] Catholic archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of the Mobile, Alabama archdiocese admitted that he permitted Rev. J. Alexander Sherlock to remain in the pulpit at a church in Montgomery even after he admitted in 1998 to sexual abuse of a teenage boy in the 1970s. (3)
-- Mar 17, 2003
[U.S. Religious History] Speaking on the 700 Club, Pat Robertson expressed his support for the separation of church and state when the "church" in question involved a religion other than Christianity: "If the United States tries nation building [in Iraq], it's got to [have] at the very top of its agenda a separation of church and state. There has to be a secular state in there [Iraq] and not an Islamic state... So it's going to be absolutely imperative to set up a constitution and safeguards that say we will maintain a secular state..." (3)
-- Mar 18, 2003
[Hinckley] Announced a new president for Brigham Young University during a regularly scheduled BYU devotional held in the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah (4)
[Utah] In Salt Lake City, Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were charged with aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary in the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, who was found with them six days earlier. Mitchell and Barzee were later found incompetent to stand trial. (2)
-- Mar 20, 2003
[U.S. Religious History] Around 2:30 GMT the United States begins its invasion of Iraq by launching a series of air strikes against Baghdad in the hopes of quickly killing leaders of the Iraqi government and ousting Saddam Hussein with his Baathist government once and for all. (3)
[U.S. Religious History] The United States House of Representatives voted 400-7 to condemn the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision not to reconsider its ruling that the addition of the phase "under God" to the The Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. The seven who voted against the resolution were all Democrats. (3)
-- During March 2003
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir establishes the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recording label. (5)
The choir launches its private record label, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and releases its first album on that label, Consider the Lilies. (6)
-- 2003 6?? May
[Hinckley] Received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Salt Lake Community College (4)
-- May 09, 2003
[U.S. Religious History] The National Association of Evangelicals, a group of evangelical Christians, condemned Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jerry Vines, Pat Robertson and other evangelical leaders for their many anti-Islamic statements. (3)
Footnotes:
1 - Church News: Historical Chronology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58765/Historical-chronology-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints.html
2 - Ratnikas, Algis, TimelinesDb, http://www.timelinesdb.com/listevents.php?subjid=201title=Utah
3 - Cline, Austin, History of American Religion: Timeline
4 - LDS Newsroom, Time line of Significant Events as President, http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/time-line-of-significant-events-as-president
5 - Sherry Baker: Mormon Media History Timeline: 1827-2007, http://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=7984
6 - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Newsroom, http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=036eb2987ff92110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRDvgnextchannel=9ae411154963d010VgnVCM1000004e94610aRCRD
Mormon History Timeline /Chronology
http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/
