Misuse of The Book of Mormon

A column in the Boston Globe -- I perceive no ill intent -- this morning shows one of the great problems I have with media coverage of religion:  The handling of sacred texts.

(I found this Dear Margo column on Lexis-Nexis, but, for some reason couldn't find it on Boston.com, so sorry about no link.)

In the advice column, a woman having an affair says the two men in her life fulfill different needs and that this is why polygamy must get started and what should she do, like that.  To Margo's credit, she is critical of the affair but then, jokingly, says that her reading of the Book of Mormon (actually her watching of Big Love, she jokes) makes her think that the writers assertion about polygamy's origin was also misguided.

The point here is not that the writer is making an invidious comparison between a mean-spirited television show and a sacred text.  The point here is that sacred texts are only very rarely consulted as sources in news articles.  This leaves the books open to caricature and joke because they are lessened in the media discourse through neglect.

 We don't learn what these books actually say in news accounts.  This is troublesome because sacred texts govern so much of how people actually live their lives and how they shape worldviews.  We can't learn how the world works without understanding how sacred texts often shape lives and purposes.  

In an era of terror and religious dispute, this is a mistake for journalism.

Were anyone actually serious enough to read it, the Book of Mormon is critical about polygamy -- save in unusual circumstances.  If anything, the Book of Mormon seems deeply critical of Deep Love with its focus on the prurient.

In fact, the Book of Mormon has much to say on torture, on peace, on war, on terrorism -- much of it deeply challenging and insightful.  Accordingly, why not consult what it actually says and make journalism more insightful?

Four stories.

Four interesting stories involving Mormonism:

1. USA Today reports that church business officials, looking at cars for the church's fleet, took a trip to a resort in Arizona at GM's expense.  It didn't make the church look bad, but it was interesting that of all the organizations the reporters could pick,  they picked an oil company and the church.  As a framing choice, I'm not sure it makes the reporter look too good.

2. A Washington Times article about the Miss USA Pageant carefully linked the way Mormons have been protested with the prejudice the Miss USA candidate faced in her efforts to speak out against gay marriage.

3.  Marie Osmond -- in Britain's tabloid the Sun -- is said to fully support her gay daughter.  The point being?

  Wouldn't it be difficult to carry the weight of the world Marie has had to carry? Think of the cultural expectations she has had -- from body image to religion to being a working mom in contrast to her brother's weight.  She is someone to admire.  Her Children's Miracle Network work has helped thousands of families.  

There are inferences that she supports gay marriage in these articles, but who knows?

4. Utah Travel.  Once again, a travel piece in the Sunday Mirror in London proves that Mormons look best when they are allowed to speak for themselves.  This kind travel piece is about as glowing a report about Utah as could be hoped, and Mormons come off looking gracious and normal.

An excellent article

I am a fan of the Center for Public Integrity -- a center of non-profit journalism.

Its new investigation on the mortgage meltdown is very important and sophisticated in its presentation.  I recommend it.

SL Trib story on baptisms for the dead

The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday, again brought up the topic of the Mormon practice of baptisms for the dead.

Media coverage of this topic is complex and problematic for Mormons on many levels.  I acknowledge that those not of the faith can sometimes have ambivalent feelings about it.

Why is it problematic?  It is an unusual doctrine in modern Christianity and has the effect -- in news coverage -- of making Mormons appear as outsiders and secretive and weird -- as vaguely dangerous, therefore.  As such, all writing on it, I believe, needs the context that it is a traditional Christian practice with scriptural support.

I would say the belief is sincere.  I would suggest looking at 1 Corinthians 15:29 for evidence of this practice being scripturally based.

Elder Andersen in the St. Pete Times

One of America's truly great newspapers, the St. Petersburg Times, did a Q. and A. with Elder Neil Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The interview was wonderful and Elder Andersen, who has ties in the Tampa/St. Petersburg Area, came off looking very good.  Very worth reading for Latter-day Saints.

One of his thoughts about the news media was:

"We are very well treated, and we are thankful for that. We don't want to have a persecution complex. We would like to be seen as Christian people who are first and foremost followers of Jesus Christ. We would secondly like to be seen as very good but normal citizens in our communities, that we are doing our best to raise our children, assist in our community and help in our neighborhoods."

Of all the things my research has taught me about the faith and news media, it is the remarkable accomplishments in public relations the church has accomplished in its history. Men like John Taylor and Thomas Kane (not a member of the faith) helped preserve the faith, with God's help, obviously, during some of its darkest hours by the power of the written word.  Women like Emmeline B. Wells were among the greatest defenders of the faith as well.

  President Hinckley's work correlates with the rise of the church being fairly well treated by the news media.  It is among his greatest accomplishments as a servant of the Lord.

Mormons were among the nation's ultimate pariahs in the 19th Century.  There was essentially no positive news coverage.  And the negative coverage was deeply hurtful and hugely stereotypical. From the very beginning, even before the church was founded, media conveyed misunderstanding.  Let's face it, Mormons make some dramatic claims and, initially, the media did a mostly lousy job of conveying it.

Today, thanks to generations of hard work, though there are stereotypes that consistently emerge, it is clear that most reporters endeavor to treat the faith fairly and accurately.  The St. Petersburg Times is evidence of that.

There is no need for a persecution complex. 

A model for journalism in religion coverage

Ron Lieber's fantastic column in The New York Times on Friday is a model for how journalism can tackle religion respectfully.  That this approach to journalism and religion is rare is a disappointment.

Lieber looked at the moral dimensions of debt -- he quoted N. Eldon Tanner of the Church -- by comparing debt to bondage.

But how do we forgive debt in a time of economic trial?  He swept across a variety of moral traditions and even quoted the Holy Quran respectfully and what I perceived to be thoughtfully.

He rationally suggested that religion provides some useful thoughts on these topics.

In the 1990s, scholar Mark Silk -- in his seminal book Unsecular Media -- argued that news media cover religion only through superficial stereotypes (he calls them topoi), and that a challenge to media is to actually cover religion in ways that reflect how people actually live it.

Lieber's column is the best I have ever seen in major media, ever, in utilizing what religions actually say and attempts to be among the most respectful.  I say this while asserting that I sense he doesn't fully agree with President Tanner.

Kudos to The New York Times for this excellent piece of work.

Mormons and spaghetti Monsters and the Book of Mormon

Many countries relying on the British Common Law have a crime, or at least a tradition of something called blasphemous libel -- an undue criticism of any religion. It is part of many constitutions and, also subject to much secualr criticism. In Ireland, a minister has been talking about it.

Why this is of note here , is the conversation in the Irish Times about it has brought up Mormonism -- in a most unflattering way. A letter-writer wrote:

"Should I anticipate prosecution of those who utter blasphemy against Scientology, Mormonism, Ashanti mythology, Zoroastrianism, Baltic polytheism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?"

In other words, Mormons are very extreme and odd. My sense in reading the European Press -- much more so than the American Press -- about the faith is that Mormons are seen often as odd balls -- just this side of wacko in these writers' eyes.

In answer to these critics, I will always come back to the great either-or question of Mormonism in our defense.

If Joseph Smith were somehow not telling the truth about the Book of Mormon origin story, we would have to be considered followers of an oddball, so to speak, it is true.

But I implore those who do think we are oddballs: If you follow this logic about Joseph Smith, you must have a substantive explanation story about the Book of Mormon's origins.

It seems just as fanciful to believe the book is the product of Joseph Smith, in fact.

Basically, the Book of Mormon is a serious claim worthy of thought:

I have like 15 years of education, and I struggle to write a dissertation over five years. Brother Joseph wrote something longer -- if he wrote it, which I believe he didn't, he translated it by the power of God -- in about 60 days without edit in extreme poverty -- often lacking for paper. (Indeed, I know of no major American author who produced a book of such significance, fiction or otherwise, in such a short amount of time and in such poverty.) He had a third grade education.

Then there is this: Read the Book of Mormon and contrast it with his known writings and you see no similarity. The tone and word choice is vastly different. Beyond that, Joseph's preaching, as recording in the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, while profound, rarely rely on stories to make their points. The Book of Mormon drips in story -- and the stories are serious and timely to us today.

And many chapters, I recommend Alma 42 and 2 Nephi 2 as evidence, are profound in their depth and complexity of doctrine at thought -- all presented in a precious, simple way.

The historical records seems little in dispute. There were essentially no edits. He did it off the top of his head to several scribes -- if it were fiction. The book has more than 300 original, but Hebrew-sounding, names. 11 men signed affidavits -- which often cost them in their personal lives -- that they saw the Golden plates. None changed their story. Joseph Smith died defending his work -- never once wavering.

Beyond that, there isn't anything approaching a serious explanation of another source for the Book of Mormon, save this young man supposedly made it up. Remember, one of the historic criticisms of Joseph Smith is that he was stupid and lazy. Try producing a book in that short amount of time being stupid and lazy that meets all of these criteria.

It should be easy to find glaring inconsistencies that are the product of the 19th century. No one has. It is a prodigious challenge to explain the Book of Mormon without believing its origin story. No one has even come close to doing it.

Say I believe in a spaghetti-monster type religion if you will. I will remain in earnest.

The Book of Mormon is a miracle in a world in desperate need of one.