The best church P.R.

As the international reporting on John Yettaw continues to give Mormonism a bad name, another article yesterday in New Zealand showed that just as the worst P.R. the church gets is from its people gone astray,  (Anybody besides me think that Yettaw may have a mental illness?) it's people, especially its young people, are its best P.R.

The glowing article in the Wellington Post talks of Adam Ruri, a former BYU student body president who has overcome the odds to be very successful in the U.S.  

I see this over and over again in the lives of the students I teach.  Mormonism produces good people -- the best P.R. the church has.

A Winter's Quest

The Wall Street Journal recently recorded a warm story of man's journey to have a large coffee at every Starbucks in North America.

The poor man's quest is costly, and he sometimes has 125 coffees in a given weekend, and he now faces the depressing challenge that Starbucks, suffering along with the economy, is closing franchises, before he has a chance to visit them.   It is an impossible quest.

The man, who lives with his parents and has named himself Winter, is a remarkable case study of religion in the most general sense.  I don't wish to mock what is an unusual quest.  I think it illustrative of the human condition.

Follow me for a minute, if you wouldn't mind.

What is religion?  What is a story?  At their most basic, I submit they are largely the same thing.

Stories are, at their basis, problems and the manner of their resolution.

Villains cause the problems.  Victims or heroes deal with the problem.  There is usually an agent of some sort that redeems the hero or there is no resolution in tragedy -- and there is a cause to that redemption or its failure -- these are largely the morals or the basic morality -- of the story.  These resolutions require a journey.

Those agents that redeem inside stories may be the actions of the characters, the influence of a third party (a messiah), or even an idea or ideology.  They are what get us to our journey's destination.

Story is the heart of life.

So, religion's relationship with story is that religion is also about problems to be overcome.  In the end, the problems with which religion deals are the great problems of existence: sin, suffering and death.  Religions sort out causes and resolution differently, but many take us on quest.

In religion, believers often go to sacred places as a way to find God, who ultimately redeems us from the problems we face.  We go on a religious quest -- often at great peril and sacrifice. (That Mormonism is connected more deeply to this ancient tradition than some of more modern, more political Christianity is significant to me.)

 Much like Winter's quest to find coffee, such quest can seem absurd to an outsider, but this quest motive leads monks and others to great feats of self-discipline in their personal quest stories.

What Winter's quest shows is the deep yearning in the human soul, so often seeking redemption by the quest to find God or to find purpose in life.

We have lots of quest stories in my Mormon faith -- The Book of Mormon is often about a journey to a sacred place -- the wilderness and the promised land.  Each church unit is on a quest to become more like Zion.  The pioneers were seeking a place God had prepared so they could redeem their souls in part by worshipping him.

Our Temples -- holy, sacred places we sometimes call the Mountain of the Lord's House -- most profoundly reflect the role of pilgrimage to my Mormon faith.

Our Mormon journey to Temple is not unlike journeys to holy places in Eastern religions or medieval journeys to Canterbury or a Muslim's journey to Mecca, or Matsuo Basho's epic across Japan.

Or, for that matter, our quest seems much like environmentalism's quest to find redemptive meaning by journeys in wilderness areas or trekker's desire to find an epic experience.  Even the ritual journeys to art galleries, to concert halls and to historic sites tie into the quest story -- finding redemption through transcendent beauty and historical meaning.

So what Winter does isn't unusual.

Mormonism is a tradition dripping in story and in quest.  We get what seems to be Winter's yearning.

 That our ritual and religious practice connect our religious stories to God directly and to our personal problems and narrative and that our quest provides deep purpose and understanding for the grand journey in life makes my religion worthy indeed.

Temples, never far from news coverage of Mormonism for their supposed secrecy, make the quest of Mormon life to truly find God and heaven.

The subtle and powerful feelings I get in temples -- a satisfying end to this earthly quest -- teach that my life's journey's purpose will be worthwhile, better even than the impossible perfection of finding every Starbucks in the world.  My earthly quest to find the House of the Lord has taught me that I truly have a chance at redemption.

 I do like being a Mormon.

The hero, Sean Binnie

Sean Binnie, a U.K. soldier from Northern Ireland, died in Afghanistan.  The Belfast Telegraph reports his funeral is at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel.   I rely on Lexis/Nexis here and haven't found it online.

Of course, such doesn't mean that he was a Mormon, but it does make it quite possible, indeed likely.  Many of the U.K. media reports gave, not surprisingly, glowing reviews of the life and service of the brave, young hero.  (As here.) None, evidently, have said whether he was Mormon.

Two thoughts:

1.  If this young man was a Mormon, then why isn't this part of the stories while the same U.K. press mentions regularly the religion of the man who invaded the home of the Burmese dissident?  Such suggests an anti-Mormon bias, I think.  (There is a slight case to be made in that Yettaw was supposedly researching a book on religion ...)

2. In all of my reading of news articles about the church, it is as true in media as it is in face-to-face life.  The best public relations the church has is through people who live the gospel fully.  Stories of our missionaries and of our volunteers  -- and of our brave soldiers like this young man appears to be -- are almost always the most positive stories about the church.  Let your light so shine remains true.  Let's hope the press picks up on the Mormon angle, insofar as they pick up on it for the Burmese story.

The Miviludes

An online publication, the Digital Journal, contains an article about one of the most troubling organizations in the Western World, France's Inter-ministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviancy.  

This influential organization monitors 50 groups, including Mormons, for their activities that may be deemed illegal -- certain kinds of proselytizing.  This year, the organization, called the Miviludes, issued a report critical of activities of these religions in their dealings with the United Nations -- not necessarily Mormons.

This organization remains a waste of taxpayer dollars.  France deserves all the scorn it can get for allowing this organization what influence it has.  Still, the State Department suggests that there as been little religious discrimination in practice as a result of this organization's work.  That Miviludes succeeds in marginalizing certain sects seems likely.  That it likely hinders Mormon proselytizing also seems likely.  (And if some sects are marginalized and threatened, the so-called dangers do grow more likely.)

Why there are fewer articles about this important organization than there are is a mystery to me.  Kudos to this international publication for trying to start this conversation anew.

Mormon Radio Launches

Without doubt, the launch this week of the Mormon Radio Channel is a visionary, dramatic use of new media by the church. It is a radio channel not broadcast over the air.  (I know of no similar approach by any organization, let alone religion.) Instead, it is an Internet site with an Apple iPhone app following soon so iPhone users can listen on their radios.  Don't be surprised if over-the-air stations ultimately pick it up.

It also looks to be solidly programmed -- thoughtful, uplifting content.

Producing 24-hours-a-day will be a challenge to fill, but it appears that they have done a great job in preparation -- not just a hodge-podge.

Such is just the latest in a series of relevant, thoughtful efforts by church leaders to embrace new media, including the Mormon Messages channel on YouTube and BYU-TV.  This is very exciting stuff.

I can hardly wait for what happens next.

Maybe a little moralizing

The Australian -- the leading newspaper in Australia -- had another article this week about a Mormon in trouble with the law.  The article asked whether the Mormon church profited from the member's alleged illegal scams.  The church accurately denied any reports.  The church never takes donations from corporations or from governments to run what it does -- so it can remain independent.

Let me moralize here.  Mormons are noticed, especially internationally.  As often as gracious papers like those in the American press, who chose not to report on the Burmese protester's religion, chose to ignore Mormon religion in their coverage of crime, there are still cases where the faith comes up.  

There is much to be said to being an example of the believers at all times and in all places.  As such, it can have a negative effect on the church when a person messes up.  Alas, the caravan moves on. 

More on Yettaw

Papers across Europe and around the world have been noting the fact that the man who landed Aung San Suu Kyi in so much trouble is a Mormon with a history of mental trauma and probable illness -- his ex-wife says, not surprisingly, that she thinks he suffers from bipolar disorder.

His Mormonism is almost never been mentioned in the American press that I can find -- save an important Associated Press article.

If it matters to anyone, Mormon doctrine says that Mormons should obey the law.  This is clearly a violation of the law and, therefore, this sad man is in violation of Mormon teaching.  

Beyond this, his strange stunt does little to help anyone with mental disabilities.

What a sad, sad story.