The photo on the right is one of film maker Helen Whitney whose documentary film in cooperation with the program Frontline aired last night on PBS. She is quoted in the Deseret Morning News in an interview with Scott Pierce as saying, "I hope that most of the stereotypes — ideally, all of them — will be blown away. Because so many of them are just based on ignorance. Ignorance about Mormon history, ignorance about Mormon theology. Ignorance."
Last night was just the first two hours of the program, but I was personally very dissapointed in most of it. Atleast Whitney tried to get the idea out that Mormons are not currently practicing polygamy. Polygamy was practiced for about forty years of the church's 200 year history. And then, by only about five percent of the members. Still, she spent quite some time interviewing a polygimist family who are not Mormons. People could get the wrong idea.
While the program tried to show the history of the western migration of the church and it did touch lightly on some important points, I thought it fell short there. In a nutshell, the Mormons had built three different and beautiful, clean and lively communities in three different states. They were driven by persecution from each one. By persecution, I don't mean hassled.. I mean tarred and feathered, murderered, raped and had their property stolen from them. Governor Boggs of the state of Missouri had issued an extermination order against them. Much of the problem the Mormons had in Missouri had to do with slavery. The divisions in the country concerning slavery were rising to a fever pitch. Mormons were against slavery and voted as a block. Those who killed Mormons were not to be and were not prosecuted. Mormons built the lovely city of Nauvoo Illinois out of a mosquito infested swamp land into a city that rivaled the city of Chicago in size and surpassed it in beauty. The prophet and his brother were murdered and the Mormons again had to leave a beautiful place that they loved to go out into the wilderness again where they contracted horrible sickness and starved and froze to death by the hundreds.
I don't know if we can, but try to imagine their anxiety, as they had settled in Salt Lake, and as they had once again begun to build a beautiful city... they recieve news that Johnson's Army sent by President Buchanan is coming to occupy the city.
All of those things are documented in journals and records that have been carefully preserved. I would have like to have had some of the experiences of these amazing people told in their own words.
I understand that we are talking about trying to cover 200 years worth of history in four hours, really a daunting and truly impossible task. And, I understand that there will be loud voices clamoring from both sides to have their views heard. Maybe it will be a starting place for those who are curious to learn about the history of the Mormon Church. While the members of the church are not and never have been a perfect people, there are so many stories and lessons of courage, strength, sacrifice and faith in the history of the church.
In my own family history, I had an ancestor who owned a farm outright in Denmank. She lived in wealth and comfort. She left it all and came to join her faith in Utah. C has an ancestor who carried her little brother on her back a thousand miles across the plains. Why? Becaused they believed. To me, that kind of faith is a sacred and beautiful thing and that above all was not covered in this program.
Still, I'll be watching tonight.
13 comments:
I agree 100%! Perhaps I am totally ignorant, and I know there is a lot of history I don't know, but I had never heard of mountain meadows, had you? I think the spent about 30 min on that alone. I would definitely heard a little more on the faith of the pioneers and about 5-10 on that.
I knew a bit about Mountain Meadows before last night. A couple of years ago I did a bit of reading about it. Very sad and tragic piece of Mormon history that I did not feel was covered completely accurately.
Actually, if you are interested. I think Wikipedia gives a pretty decent overview... here is the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
I'm a Mormon. My husband is not. We watched it and I thought it was well done considering the rich history that had to be presented in minimal time. My husband normally rolls his eyes at this stuff but he sat through the whole thing and truly enjoyed it! I thought it was...neutral. Thats hard to find when discussing religion--ever.
Oh, and we'll be watching tonight as well.
The Mormons, was a typical view of the intellectual mormon community. Not so faith promoting. But guess what I think it will do us some good anyway. They got so many things wrong. But it's for sure they wanted to spend a lot of time on the mountain meadows massacre. Anyway it will be interesting to see what the next episode is like.
The show was not meant to show only the faith promoting side. It was presenting opposing views as well. So the comments that were to be considered as misinformation were simply opposing viewpoints. From what my research shows most of the historical information was correct. The only thing I picked up on that I knew for certain to be incorrect was the age of a girl Joseph married. They said she was 19 but she was actually 16.
Tonights show dealt much more with the current church. Interesting show.
I linked to your review on my blog. Thank you for writing about it!
I hated it. I hated it!!! It made me angry. Again, historians take the miraculous out of everything. I am resigned to believe that historians, and scientists take out human emotion, miracles, divinity, and love out of every story. English teachers are all we have left to tell the real story. What gives people?! I do not understand a context without the human element. Isn't that a recent campaign ad? Needless to say, I hated this PBS special. It was disgusting to me. People are going to think that being Mormon is about being a Mormon. It is not! It is about faith in Jesus Christ. The name of our church bears His name. Being a Mormon is secondary-if even that. Being a Mormon is about doing what Christ tells you to do. This documentary barely mentioned anything about that. It focused on all the petty arguments, the mistakes of men, the misunderstandings, etc. Nothing concrete in my opinion. It was insulting me, especially the part about Joseph Smith wanting everybody to meet God like he did-totally taken out of context. The Book of Mormon wasn't even quoted once! And this is a documentary about Mormon belief?!
Yes, I had heard of Mountain Meadows.
Just to be clear, I'm not being defensive about my church or beliefs but like anyone might feel, I am insulted in how they presented it as this faithless, logical text in "human terms." I cannot believe their lack of attention to The Book of Mormon itself. And I was especially angry at the guy that mentioned he could hear Joseph Smith's "tone" all through the book. He said something like, "this is a farmer..." The idea that he made up this mythology and eventually believed it himself is completely absurd. His various accounts of the vision demonstrate his simplicity as a farm boy and that through education of the Spirit, he was able to record his thoughts with more precise language. I just can't believe these people. They speak assertively of recognizing Joseph's "tone" in The Book of Mormon and provide NO examples from the text as evidence-because you can't. The text comes from God. Man! Irresponsible journalism. It's frankly pathetic.
One more thing on my whole pathetic thing-I thought that I was watching Jay Walk instead of a responsible documentary.
Thanks Tola. I was a bit nervous. :)
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