Open Discussion on Reactions to PBS’s “The Mormons: Episode 1”

3 points:

1) Above all our Prophelt and an apostle were allowed to bear strong testimony of Joseph Smith on Nationwide TV. This is a monumental missionary moment, and is reaching a huge number of folks that would otherwise never have heard this. No matter what else is in the film that trumps all, and is glorious!

2) The one unfair line in the film (only saw first half, so others may have seen others) was to allow that guy to say some in the Church are embarassed by the Gold Plates/Book of Mormon story. How utterly stupid is that commment. If you don’t belive in the story you, pretty much by definition, are not a Mormon.

3) If any non-member asks my opinion I will say the following “I thought it was overly kind to our people” It may seem an odd response on the first glance, but consider it for a moment. The film revealed some of our warts as a people. With that response you are admitting we are not perfect as a people, and that we are OK with that, the Saints are human after all. That will put all the “warts” that were touched on in the film in a context that they do not need defending. In other words saying, in essense, I love my fellow Saints in spite of their imperfections, much like I love my teenager, in spite of his surlyness.

It was a truly wonderful production. Kudos to the producers. It is so great to have an open presentation of church history.

Criticisms:

– Too much time spent on Mountain Meadows. Although the MM section was really good. Disproportionate time was spent on polygamy but I think that was neccessary given the audience.

– Not enough time spent on important events in Missouri and Illinois such as the battle at crooked river, the salt sermon, the stand down at far west, imprisonment at independence, Bennet, Masonry.

According to the documentary’s trailer, Whitney’s goal is to reduce the public’s misunderstanding of Mormonism. At a time when a serious candidate for president is Mormon, a motion picture about Mountain Meadows is about to be screened, and polygamists appear on the FBI’s most wanted list, of course, one has to engage Mormon negatives. Otherwise it is impossible to reduce prejudice.

The effective way to deal with negatives is to tell it yourself, tell it early, and tell it all.

Mormon leaders have been spoiled because they have been able to control the content of the conversation among Mormons for decades. That won’t work in the age of the Internet, especially not when Romney is a contender for the nomination. There are too many ways and too many interests to emphasize the negatives.

Mormon leaders are lucky that someone like Whitney is working so hard to talk about the negatives in a rational manner putting polygamy and MMM into their historical context.

It turns out that the correlation and strengthening the members committees have created substantial vulnerabilities when they treated the members like children that could not handle the truth.

My sympathy to the bishops who have to deal with the anxieties of members who watched the documentary. But lets face it, it’s going to get a lot worse during the presidential campaign. Whitney’s work is affording Mormons the softest possible landing.

From a distance, the story is reflective of humans and human experience. As such, it is worthy of approach without fear of ‘being converted’ or ‘apostacizing’ (whichever camp you come from.) :)

The story less the mystery has many evocative elements that are worthy of consideration as well as acceptance as a result of another great historical experience and testimony of the influence of faith on humanity. Both presented and not presented in the video. (Example: the sincere familial aspects of polygamy) Now that this stuff is out of the closet, the door is more open to discussion. Perhaps we may reason together. ;)

Confession to the world: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto” [I am a man, nothing (of the) human do I regard as foreign to me.]

Ps. It would appear Romney is as good for the church as the church has been for him. (Understand though that the production began more than three years ago and had no motive with respect to Mr. Romney.)

I just thought of something else that was not in last night’s show: the restoration of the priesthood. Odd, given the importance of priesthood authority and the running theme through the doc about Mormon obedience to the priesthood. It would help explain to people why Mormons are so obedient (assuming, arguendo, that they are) if they had talke a little about the idea that the apostolic authority and levitical authority were restored by angels (according to the official history).

Jesse, I, too thought they did a fair job on Joseph’s murder. One nit to pick: they mentioned that William Law had become disenchanted with Joseph over polygamy. Might have been nice to have given a little more backstory there: that Joseph had tried to steal Law’s wife, then when she refused, spread nasty rumors about her and William. But perhaps that is too much to ask.

I think many would count me as a critic of the church. I thought the program was balanced and objective and neither a PR puff piece nor an “anti” hatchet job. A variety of views were presented by scholars and theologians (it wasn’t just “official church view” versus “raging apostate view.) I thought all of the commenters they showed were thoughtful and insightful and interesting (though some were odd–the poet with the crazy eyes and the dancing thing from Givens). I think those who say it was unduly critical or unduly deferential either did not watch the program or are suffering from an inability to account for their own biases.

““Controversial Events in Mormon History: The Greatest Hits Vol. 1″.

I like that! Actually, I don’t mind the polygamy segment; that was certainly necessary. But I realy don’t understand why the long Mountain Meadows segment. Do we get to learn tonight just what lasting impact that event had on … somebody? something?

was less than impressed with it, really. I wasn’t expecting such a strong secularizing bias. Comments like (paraphrasing, and maybe this is just how I heard it) “I think J.S.’s overworked sex drive was responsible for polygamy” being followed up with the clawback “it’ too simple to suggest that J.S.’s overworked sex drive was the only factor” — I think the take away point is about J.S.’s sex drive, and sure, that is a legitimate area to focus, but it felt heavy handed and unfair. Of all the possible explanations for Mormonism’s growth, none of them seemed to give much credence to the possibility that maybe — just maybe — Joseph Smith was actually what he said he was. I’ll watch it again and see if I feel the same way.

But watching the pioneer treck sure helped me understand a lot more of the Momron mentality I grew up with in my pioneer-stock family — you sacrifice and commit so much to it, it had BETTER be true, and we’ll find ways to make sure it is true every chance we get.

Those who think that too much time was spent on polygamy or Mountain Meadows need to reconsider the big picture. Polygamy, like it or not, is a HUGE aspect of Mormonism. If it weren’t for JS’s revelation on polygamy, we’d not have the concept of eternal families, the endowment, sealings, and so on. Polygamy was a central tenet of the church for nearly 50 years, and remained practiced with varying levels of official sanction for at least two decades after the Manifesto was given. The Church had a ward in Short Creek until the 40’s, for pity’s sake! Most of the fundamentalists of the 20’s through 40’s were members of the LDS church. Polygamy is part of what got the Mormons driven out of Missouri and Illinois. It is part of why President Buchanan declared war on Utah! Like it or don’t, but polygamy is VERY important in our history.

I was impressed that they chose a very normal polygamous family to portray from the Modern Mormon Fundamentalist community. It is nice that they chose a family that is like all of te fundies I know, rather than the usual worn-out stories about the FLDS and Warren Jeffs. Warren was shown for a couple seconds, dismissed by the narrator as an extremist, and then the story moved on to modern “real-life” polygamists who are every bit as normal as you or I, and who are every bit as faithful to the restoration of the gospel as you or I or any church member.

As for MMM, the “set-up” took up most of that segment, and the set-up was actually instrumental in explaining a lot of why and how the saints continued to be persecuted even in Utah. The part about how combustible the atmosphere was due to the murder of Parley Pratt, and that Buchanan had sent 20% of the US Army marching for Utah, and the declaration of war on Utah, has bearing on much of our history, not just MMM. So while MMM was the goal of this set-up, I saw the set-up in its larger historical context rather than merely providing the foundation for MMM.

Hellmut said: “My sympathy to the bishops who have to deal with the anxieties of members who watched the documentary.”

I do not really believe that this will cause the apoplexy among the general membership that some people seem to think it will. To the extent there is “new” information to the general membership, I don’t think the nature of the information is such that it should cause distress and dismay to most.

The only thing in that documentary which I suspect might catch some members by surprise is the detailed information about MMM. That is because MMM does not really fit into doctrinal discussions at church, not because it has been “correlated out” of existence. Anyone who grew up in Utah, for example, would know about MMM because Utah students are required to take a Utah history course. Further, anyone who has studied Church History on any level would know about MMM.

I think most members already know that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. First, this information is taught in Religion Classes at BYU and in Institutes across the country. Second, the book In Sacred Loneliness is readily available at any Deseret Book store.

I also think most members already know that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in large part using a stone, which he would place into a hat to block out light. This information has been available in the Ensign for years, and it was taught to me in Seminary a a young man as the method by which the Book of Mormon was translated. I must assume that it is also taught in Seminary classes across the country, assuming the students are actually awake enough to listen…

I wonder if the modern polygamist family featured in the documentary will no be prosecuted for violation of the law. The authorities seem to generally leave polygamists alone, except when they go on national television proclaiming their lifestyle (see, e.g., Tom Green).

Personally, I really enjoyed the documentary. I love the complexities of history, and I love how it adds to my faith that the Lord can use imperfect people to accomplish his works.

I think Chris makes a very valid point.

Equality,

Maybe my complaint was unjustified. I simply was expecting more of a narrative history of the Church and not so much a thematic history. Again, just my opinion.

Jordan,

The families of Centennial Park (where I assume the family featured last night lives) are very open about their lifestyle and also open about the fact that they do not marry 13-year old girls, like Tom Green, or wed underage girls to old men, like the Warren Jeffs FLDS do. The CP folks have frequent dialog with the authorities, including a town hall meeting in St. George last week. They also had one of their families interviewed on ABC Primetime Live a few months ago. They are upstanding, good people, with nothing to hide, and I am very glad that they are making the effort to become the “public face of fundamentalist Mormonism” so that the media is not so distracted by nutjobs and looney tunes. The LDS church actually could stand to gain quite a lot in terms of public opinion if Centennial Park succeeds at replacing the FLDS in the spotlight, because if you must be associated in the public eye with polygamy, the CP folks are the ones you want to be confused with :)

Normally, I give the benefit of the doubt to the subject rather than the journalist. In this case, the church, Old McMaxwells FARMS and DCP got exactly what they deserve.

As long as the church tools DCP for their apologetics in the same fashion they tooled the late Nibley, they deserve confusion rather than clarification. More, DCP regularly whines about how he is independent and he is just as presented, Brother Islam, not Dr. A. Paul O-Gest, surely.

Hilarious is right. Though, I have to also say that I thought the hat-trick was a HUGE distraction in the first half of the show. It is such a shame that finally, fiiiinally, the American Religion makes it to the big stage, and it gets upstaged by a previously covered-up fact – peepstones in a hat. It was a distraction but an obligation on the part of Whitney. I just wish she could have spent more time developing Smith for his charisma. That may have evolved into a better appreciation for those that followed Smith.

Please keep comments respect of other people’s faith, and not personal (I had to remove a few).

Thanks!

#31 Barunner: where did PBS explain why they did not state the interviewee’s Mormon/non-Mormon status? I am curious about that myself. Do you have a link? Thanks!

Ben There, #32 The explanation about why they did not state religious affiliations is in the Washington Post live chat with Helen whitney. Here’s the quote:”
Allentown, Pa.: Why didn’t you show the LDS affiliation (or non-LDS status) of those interviewed, which would have provided viewers with the “perspective” they were coming from. For example, most active Mormons do not know that Terryl Givens is LDS (and your documentary doesn’t make that clear until Part 2). I agree that it probably doesn’t matter to a non-LDS person, but it would matter to most LDS members watching it (who tend to discount the opinions of non-LDS academics and historians).

Helen Whitney: I decided not to label the religious affiliation of those being interviewed for the very reason you mentioned in your note to me. I wanted people to listen carefully and respectfully to each person — and not automatically discount what people were saying because they were either LDS or not LDS. As you said, LDS folks “tend to discount the opinions on non LDS members and historians.” This is a reflexive habit that prevents them (or anyone) from broadening their horizons. ”

Here’ s the link:
https://tinyurl.com/329elb