Friday, June 12, 2009

Time this week.

Time magazine has a long feature on the Church and proposition 8.  Reasonably fair-minded and interesting.  It does have some loaded terms like how prop 8 seems to be becoming a "referendum on Mormonism itself."

But the article does allow Mormons to speak for themselves, including a talented new mission president from the Bay area, and it talks of church humanitarian work glowingly and describes the remarkable experience of persecution Mormons faced in the wake of Prop 8.  

Still, I can't shake this lingering observation of Mormon coverage today.  It may be accurate, largely anyway, but it misses something.

I have concluded that people don't really get from the media what we are claiming with the Book of Mormon and how it shapes us.  Yes, some report our description of its miraculous origins.   Indeed, Many journalists in recent years have told the origin story of the book of Mormon -- but left their evaluation of the book there, implying that we must use the origin story of the Book of Mormon as the way to evaluate whether the book is true -- not on what the Book of Mormon actually says and accomplishes in lives.

It is something that still bothers me a great deal about religion coverage generally and Mormon coverage in particular.  We don't get how people live their religions.

2 comments:

  1. I know what you mean about the article lacking something. I was having a hard time putting my finger on just what it was however. I believe by the response to it on Twitter (many anti's and well as members were passing it along)that missing life changing conviction the gospel brings was felt across the board. How do you think that could have been addressed better?

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  2. Thanks for the reply. I wrestle with this, but letting people tell their own story is key to this.

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