The Mormons

Last Monday and Tuesday PBS showed a 4 hour special entitled "The Mormons"

Here are my thoughts on the PBS program, The Mormons.

Once again the media gets it wrong! Not surprisingly, it wasn’t even close! I am speaking of the PBS documentary on the Mormons. Since PBS has a well defined history of not being fair and balanced, it is no surprise to me that the bulk of the Monday night fiasco was concerning polygamy and Mountain Meadows.

In the pompous and piousness of the judgmental PBS, it became apparent that to the authors of the piece that there is no spiritual background for polygamy. It does not shock me that in today’s flurry of sexual predators and deviants that PBS try to put Joseph Smith into that category. It is, after all, the pop culture of today that puts that level of deviancy into our homes everyday on television.

I am also not surprised that more emphasis would be put on Mountain Meadows than on Hauns Mill and Far West . It seemed to be okay for the mobs to thrust against the Mormons without anyone being held accountable, but when a few “mobocrats”, who happen to be LDS take matters into their own hands, then it was “sanctioned” from the top, even Brigham Young. This, despite the fact that there has never been any evidence linking anyone but the Cedar City LDSers to that crime.

And where did Warren Jeffs fit in? He isn’t a Mormon! He has his own church and religion. He doesn’t claim any affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Fitting him into this is like having a piece on the Catholics and using the Episcopalians as examples of Catholics.

I was greatly disappointed by the fact that more non-Mormons and excommunicated Mormons, and those who have just left the Church were used in the story as experts, while the use of active members and General Authorities was minimal, at best. They producers tried to present the facts, but the fact is that the facts are meaningless without the Spirit. And it was the Spirit that is sorely lacking in this piece.

In the 89th Section of The Doctrine and Covenants we are warned and forewarned, “Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days…”. Certainly there is a conspiracy in these last days against the Church by conspiring men. While they think they continue to do the world a favor by “exposing” the Mormons, they are actually playing into the hands of Satan.

The silver lining in the cloud of this piece is a quotation by Brigham Young. Basically he said that “we will convert the world, and if all men stand against us, we will do it the quicker” Whenever there is great public opposition to the Church, Missionary work increases because people are curious as to whether or not what they heard was true. This piece is so full of holes that it will be easy for the serious investigator to see thru it with the Spirit.