Stephen Stone column

Stephen Stone is the President and Editor of RenewAmerica — a conservative media site dedicated to restoring respect for America's founding principles.

This purpose includes not only respect for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as written, but for the Creator and His laws.

From the time he was a teenager, Stephen has considered himself a born-again Christian. Since then, he has devoted his life to pursuing life's questions and challenges through seeking to know the mind and will of God, and through seeking the ongoing sanctification of His Spirit.

As a result, Steve has become somewhat of a religious philosopher — one committed to defining the truth of any subject (as well as applying it) by the clear standards of God's Word.

His religious testimony can be found in "What does it mean to be converted to Jesus Christ," a position statement he wrote for RenewAmerica... (more).

Christ alone

Raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Steve has long remained independent of the norms and traditions of the church — choosing instead to center his beliefs in an objective study of the scriptures. As a result, he believes — as the Bible teaches — that salvation comes through relying alone on Jesus Christ, no matter one's professed religious affiliation.

He is currently unaffiliated with any denomination, having been removed from the LDS Church for refusing church leaders' demands that he quit working for national pro-life leader Alan Keyes.

Political advocacy

Stephen's deeply-held faith in Christ led him years ago to become a strong advocate of moral conservatism, and an equally avid opponent of all forms and degrees of humanistic socialism. As an outgrowth of this commitment, he and his wife of 41 years, DeeAnn, homeschooled all eight of their children from birth to adulthood — through nurturing continual learning and family-centered dependence on God.

Steve has been active in Utah and national politics for over 30 years. Among other things:

• He and another family laid the groundwork for what became the Utah Home Education Association.
  
  
• He once extemporaneously debated the state's governor — during a buffet luncheon — over the inadvisability of the governor's plan to raise taxes for public education by the largest increase in state history.
  
  
• He led the fight to overturn an oppressive 40-acre zoning requirement in his county — persuading public officials to adopt a 5-acre zone in the county's unincorporated area that gave farmers reasonable control of their property and resulted in the creation of a fast-growing major city called Eagle Mountain (the third largest in the state based on land area).
  
  
• Shortly after the above zone change, he and a colleague wrote the initial brochure for a newcomer to politics who was seeking a vacant seat on the county commission. That candidate (who won, by the way, and who over the years has become a close friend in the political arena) is now the governor of Utah.
  
  
• He has served on the state GOP's Central Committee and been a delegate several times to county and state conventions.
  
  
• He and his family ran a gubernatorial campaign for a conservative candidate who lost to eventual winner Jon Huntsman in 2004.
  
  
• The family created Alan Keyes' website (and did extensive writing and research) when Keyes ran against Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate from Illinois in 2004.
  
  
• Steve was CEO of Keyes' 2008 presidential committee — overseeing such things as the campaign's finances, logistics, organizing, and website.
  

Steve and his family first became involved in the work of Alan Keyes during the 2000 presidential election, and after helping Keyes gain his best showing of the GOP primaries — 21.3 percent in Utah — they joined the candidate's national staff. Steve and his daughter Stefani represented Keyes at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia that year.

Steve founded RenewAmerica in 2002 to lend support to Keyes' live MSNBC TV show "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense," and RenewAmerica.com has since grown to over a hundred contributing writers and been named by the New York Times Company's About.com as one of the top ten conservative political websites in the U.S.

Additional facts

Prior to RenewAmerica, Steve was an educator. He loves teaching, and for years he taught writing at a large private university, where he became — in the words of his immediate superior — the school's foremost authority on tutorial education. This tutorial background led him to take the reins of an innovative private school called Family-Centered Learning, which he directed for many years. Previous to teaching college English, he served briefly as a religious educator, and before that, as a bread delivery man, his first "real" job.

He's never worked in the public sector (except when he was a teenager working on a summer street crew in his home town) — and he characterizes socialism as little more than "everyone working for government," something to be carefully avoided in any form that goes beyond selfless public service, in his view.

Over the years, Steve has undertaken a variety of challenging entrepreneurial pursuits in seeking the American dream of liberty, independence, and personal responsibility, and he and his family have succeeded in building a home by themselves on a farm they own debt-free.

Stephen Stone

May 13, 2013

As the gay agenda rolls forth unchecked in fulfillment of its published goals and tactics — dragging Western Civilization down more predictably than the . . .

Stephen Stone

April 29, 2013

Few things reveal Mormonism's lack of a moral core as much as the LDS church's recent announcement of its support for welcoming homosexuals into the Boy Scouts. . . .

Stephen Stone

April 11, 2013

Now we're getting somewhere. In recent weeks, I've received a handful of interesting emails — in part due to our Mormonism under the Microscope . . .

Stephen Stone

March 18, 2013

In logic, the most important element is our premises. The premises of our reasoning determine the reliability of our conclusions — no matter how valid . . .

Stephen Stone

February 17, 2013

The single most disconcerting problem with the Mormon church is not its extreme authoritarianism, unsurpassed among modern religious cultures; or any of its . . .

Stephen Stone

February 1, 2013

[Editor's note: RenewAmerica and its work have been the object of unlawful harassment by the Mormon church — fully documented — for over a decade, . . .

Stephen Stone

January 21, 2013

During the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, the LDS church came under unprecedented scrutiny, since if Mitt won, he would be not only the most . . .

Stephen Stone

December 27, 2012

One of the most instructive things about the life of Christ is that He could have, at any time, opted out of His mission to save the world from sin, had He been . . .

Stephen Stone

December 8, 2012

The Mormon church has long shown itself inordinately sensitive to public opinion, often inclined to embrace accepted societal norms only as adverse publicity . . .

Stephen Stone

November 25, 2012

It's barely been a week since our son Ellery got married and our family was again barred (by both overt action and circumstance) from attending a wedding of . . .

Stephen Stone

November 3, 2012

In a contested race for political office, it's impossible to vote against someone. The ballot doesn't allow it. That reality has somehow gotten lost in this . . .

Stephen Stone

October 29, 2012

About three years ago, a graduate of Brigham Young University — a large Mormon institution heavily populated by "positive-thinking" returned LDS . . .

Stephen Stone

October 22, 2012

Mitt Romney and I went on our Mormon missions exactly the same time. Born in March 1947, we spent a week together — along with 200 other new LDS . . .

Stephen Stone

October 15, 2012

Most informed, decent Americans realize that we as a nation are faced this election with a choice that is entirely unthinkable on the one hand (Barack Obama), . . .

Stephen Stone

October 8, 2012

I have a theory that's been nagging me for months, and I hope I'm completely wrong. My theory would help explain why Barack Obama appeared unfocused, . . .

Stephen Stone

October 1, 2012

One of the great things about America is the opportunity for open, sincere debate by all interested citizens about what should be public policy. During this . . .

Stephen Stone

September 24, 2012

The 2012 presidential election is like no other in our nation's history. In view of the public record, the election features the most powerful communist in . . .

Stephen Stone

September 17, 2012

Those who find themselves with seemingly no choice this presidential election do in fact have a choice they might not immediately recognize. It's called . . .

Stephen Stone

September 10, 2012

I'm deeply sympathetic to those millions of conservatives who feel they have "no choice" but to vote for Mitt Romney this November. I appreciate their view and . . .

Stephen Stone

September 3, 2012

One valid definition of "demagoguery" is the intentional use of emotion to sway people's thinking. Suppose a speaker wants to convince an unsympathetic . . .

Stephen Stone

May 21, 2012

Now that Barack Obama has come out in favor of same-sex marriage, media reports have been quick to contrast the president's position with that of "conservative" . . .

Stephen Stone

May 10, 2012

This installment in our series on Mitt Romney and Mormonism takes a look at the moral imperative God requires of all voters. It's an imperative that has special . . .

Stephen Stone

April 18, 2012

With Rick Santorum's recent departure from the 2012 presidential sweepstakes, the Republican establishment — aided and abetted by self-identified  . . .

Stephen Stone

April 4, 2012

 . . .

Stephen Stone

March 22, 2012

One of the curious things about Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential bid is the near-unanimous support he enjoys among fellow . . .

Stephen Stone

March 11, 2012

The candidacy of Mitt Romney for the most powerful office in the world opens up the Mormon church to public scrutiny as never . . .

Stephen Stone

February 21, 2012

With the 2012 Republican presidential primaries rapidly approaching "critical mass," it's important to understand the enigmatic culture that spawned delegate . . .

Stephen Stone

February 10, 2012

As the Republican establishment redoubles its efforts to anoint Mitt Romney the GOP presidential nominee (an outcome likely to ensure a second term for Barack . . .

Stephen Stone

December 28, 2002

As is well known, one of the knocks against conservatives is that they tend to let their enemies define who they are and what they believe. Rather than define . . .

Stephen Stone

November 27, 2002

"Education is primarily a local responsibility." We heard that comment many times throughout the 2002 election season. Years ago, I encountered those very . . .

Stephen Stone

November 21, 2002

The "American Dream" is one of the most commonly misunderstood ideals in American culture. The term is used loosely to mean just about anything from the . . .