Michael Otterson

Michael Otterson

Media relations director, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“On Faith” panelist Michael Otterson has served as director of media relations for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1997. As senior spokesman for the church, Otterson has worked with most major publications, TV and radio networks, and other news media in the United States and overseas on issues ranging from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to the Church’s burgeoning international growth and diversity. A convert to the Mormon faith, he worked as a journalist for 11 years before being appointed director of the Church’s public affairs office in London in 1976 – the first such office outside the United States. After opening and managing a new Pacific Area public affairs office in Australia, Otterson moved to the United States in 1991 to help oversee the church’s international public affairs from its Salt Lake City headquarters. In a church that operates worldwide with a lay clergy, Otterson has served twice as a stake president (leader of a group of church congregations), in both England and Australia. He is now a US citizen. Close.

Michael Otterson

Media relations director, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“On Faith” panelist Michael Otterson has served as director of media relations for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1997. As senior spokesman for the church, Otterson has worked with most major publications, TV and radio networks, and other news media in the United States and overseas on issues ranging from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to the Church’s burgeoning international growth and diversity. more »

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Morality Archives



February 12, 2007 10:08 AM

Conscience, Not Religious Dogma, is the Motivator

If you lived with my wife, you wouldn't ever toss anything in the garbage that can be recycled. Plastic, paper, metal cans and glass jars get dropped in individual recycling bins in the garage. Vegetable peelings go to the compost, even if I have to tramp through the snow. My wife sets the heating in the home at least two degrees below comfortable in winter, and the air conditioning a few degrees higher in summer. Now she's pushing for solar panels on the roof.

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Posted by Michael Otterson | | Comments (152)




March 3, 2007 9:08 AM

We Can't Abandon Fundamental Moral Laws

This week’s two questions are captured in just 20 words, and yet they drill into an issue that has become so complex, so politicized and which evokes such passions and pain that any quick and easy answer of a few hundred words risks over-simplification.

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Posted by Michael Otterson | | Comments (581)




January 17, 2008 7:36 AM

Self-Indulgence: A Chronic Human Failing

This hierarchy of seven deadly sins grew out of the monastic orders of the Middle Ages in Europe, so even though each of these sins is present in ancient Judeo-Christian texts, the list isn’t a biblical concept.

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Posted by Michael Otterson | | Comments (37)


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