PBS Special

I don’t know if any of you ended up seeing “The Mormons” on PBS earlier this week. I have a few comments about it that I want to mention.

1) Katie and I have known this was in the works for a couple of years. Katie’s brother, Dan, was interviewed for it as was the Tillamen-Dick family who are friends of Katie’s family. Dan’s interview didn’t make the final cut, but the segment on the Tillamen-Dicks did. The family might look familiar to those of you who were at our wedding reception in Colorado.

2) Overall, I thought the program was pretty good. It was not overly unbalanced. I had a few complaints, detailed below, but overall it was better than I expected.

3) They had a few too many excommunicated members commenting on things other than their own excommunication. There were about 6 commentators that were either excommunicated, disfellowshipped, or self-distanced from the religion after being members. A couple of them were pretty obviously anti-mormon. They had a few members of the church that were quite eloquent and several general authorities including, President Hinckley, Elder Oaks, and Elder Marlin Jensen. I suppose you could say that’s balanced, but I think having the anti-mormons comment about Joseph Smith or polygamy is a bit like asking Hugo Chavez to comment on Bush’s foreign policy. There were several rather unbiased commentators including a history professor or two, an evangelical Christian scholar, and the well-known literary critic, Harold Bloom. I was grateful for that.

4) As far as the content goes, I had a problem with some of the things they said about Joseph Smith.
They emphasized his “treasure hunting” and the fact that he was tried at court for treasure hunting. They even said explicitly that he was good at it. The narrator said it as did an interviewee whose description said “Former Church Educator”. Neither of them mentioned that he was acquitted (as in every other trial) and neither justified the claim that he was good at treasure hunting. I think most people would say that the fact that he was always poor as somewhat credible evidence that he was ever “good at it” in any way we would think of.
They also emphasized his apparent thirst for power in Nauvoo. He was the political, military, judicial, and religious leader. They neglected to mention how popular he was and how the people he “ruled” wanted it to be that way. They also neglected to mention his time at Liberty Jail, his frequent arrests in Missouri for crimes of which he was never convicted. I guess my point is that they seemed to be very meticulous about reporting the strange or unusual things he did without being as meticulous in showing the strange or unusual things done to him. Though, to be fair, they didn’t mention anything about freemasons.

5) I thought they did a remarkably good job on the topics of polygamy, the mountain meadows massacre, temples, and missionary work. The coverage of the church’s opposition of the ERA was, however, wholly unsatisfactory. Comments by excommunicated feminists were rebutted by a member who bumbled his way to a rather sexist explanation.
Also, they spent some time on Reed Smoot. That part was very educational for me.

6) The filmmaker seemed to have a hard time getting her head around the fact that church leaders insisted there was no room for middle ground as far as the Joseph Smith story and the Book of Mormon goes. It seemed like she was always asking them why they couldn’t just admit that maybe there was no first vision, and that maybe the angel Moroni didn’t really appear to Joseph Smith, or maybe the Book of Mormon really came from somewhere else.

7) The film mentioned the time when Elder Packer said (I think to some sort of gathering of church leaders) that the three biggest threats to the church are feminists, homosexuals, and intellectuals. I hadn’t heard of this. But after discussing this with Katie, we think we know what he means. The word “feminist” is, of course, rather imprecise. But for certain definitions I agree with Elder Packer. As far as intellectuals go, that seemed really odd to me at first. But then I read some of the interviews on the PBS website and knew exactly what he meant. The excommunicated intellectuals interviewed had several things in common. First, they had a tendency to question and seek proof of everything. I would say that that’s pretty typical of all scholars and not necessarily bad. Second, they applied that standard of questioning and proving to church doctrines. Third, they questioned church doctrine and proposed different doctrine. Fourth, they advocated their proposals by publishing them or teaching them.
In some ways it’s sort of baffling. These people disagree with major church doctrines, don’t sustain local and/or general leaders, and try to persuade others to their point of views; yet many were surprised and upset when they are excommunicated.
I guess maybe it was best said by Nephi (or Jacob?) in the pair of verses, “When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God…” and “But to be learned is good if they hearken to the counsels of God.” (2nd Nephi 9).

Anyway, if you haven’t watched it, it’s worth seeing. I found it interesting and overall, pretty good.