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SALT LAKE CITY — A visit of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ordain Women making national headlines and a series of firsts for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are among Utah’s most memorable religious moments of 2014.
Dr. Ravi Zacharias visits Salt Lake City
Thousands of evangelical Christians filled the Salt Lake Tabernacle in January of this year to welcome internationally renowned evangelist Ravi Zacharias.
“The way we keep moving, living beyond our moral means and our fiscal means and our spiritual means, we think there will never be a payday,” Zacharias told the crowd.
The Rev. Greg Johnson's organization Standing Together sponsored the event, and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles hosted it.
“What we have in common is so good, so far-reaching and so potentially powerful in addressing the ills of society and of the soul,” Elder Holland said.
The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit
In February, curators from the Israel Antiquities Authority brought 10 new fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the exhibition at The Leonardo museum in Salt Lake City.
"It's biblical scripture, and it's always been intriguing to me just to understand; and (to) be able to see, literally, where it is and where it came from is just amazing," said Kevin Dabb, a visitor to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.
Before they were returned to Jerusalem in April, the scrolls and antiquities had attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.
A year of firsts for the LDS Church
March marked the first General Women's Meeting for Latter-day Saint women, teenagers and girls as young as 8 years old. It is considered part of the faith's general conference sessions.
Ordain Women captured national headlines when its founder, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated from the LDS Church in June. Church leaders issued a statement saying, "Of course, there is room to ask questions. But how we ask is just as important as what we ask."
In another first, LDS Church leaders delivered addresses in October general conference in their native languages.
Also historic, LDS Church leaders participated in an international interfaith colloquium on marriage at the Vatican. President Henry B. Eyring, second counselor in the Church’s First Presidency, was invited to deliver a personal testimony during the three-day meeting.
“What we added was eternal life; and there was no one else, no one, even the most religious, that do not have the picture that we have that you can live forever in a family,” President Eyring said.
Utah Catholics travel to Vatican City
The Madeleine Choir School toured Italy in November, performing at the Vatican. The Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of the Salt Lake Diocese, celebrated Mass at the pope's chapel.
"Here we are in Utah living the faith, and we come here to Rome, to the Vatican, and we also are able to profess that same faith," Bishop Wester said. "There's a sense of communion, a sense of unity that I think is very important."
