Liberal Mormon

Report on Mormontimes By McKay Coppins Shocked and Appalled Syndrome

I stumbled on this report earlier and wanted to bring more exposure to it, and add my comments as well.

So, HBO is at it again, trying to attract attention -- and, consequently, subscribers -- by outraging the Mormons. Can we really blame them?

Offending Latter-day Saints by mocking or misrepresenting our faith has proven to be a very lucrative business, after all.

Lucrative doesn't begin to describe this subject Sir. Have you never wandered into a "Christian" book store and wandered into the "Cult" section. If you want to feel the "Christian Love" that is where you need to go. Endless books full of complete trash, fiction, lies mingled with scripture and cut 'n' paste quotes. The Decker Family, the Tanner Family have made a living hawking their crap for a living. Ed Decker's triple combination was EBAY a few months back, he was trying to sell it for $5000! Can you believe that garbage?? Who'd pay $5k for a famous anti-Mormon Book of Mormon???

Take, for example, Jon Krakauer's inflammatory bestseller, "Under the Banner of Heaven." The book, which was released in July 2003, tells the story of two Mormon fundamentalists who brutally murdered Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter, claiming they acted on divine revelation. Krakauer attempts to prove that such behavior has roots in the history of Mormonism, and compares faithful Mormons to extreme Muslim terrorists.

Understandably upset by the soon-to-be-published manuscript, the Church pre-emptively released a statement condemning Krakauer's assertions. The LDS community immediately responded with defensiveness, anger and boycotts. Apologetics harshly denounced the book, questioning Krakauer's credibility and intentions.And what was the result? The controversy fanned the flame, and the book went on to be a bestseller.

Understandably that was the result. Today's 24/7, twitter, must know now, got to hear the latest gossips generation thrives on this kind of sensationalism. One must only visit a supermarket to see the racks and racks of total and complete CRAP people just THRIVE ON. Anything since the FLDS scandal happened in Texas seems to just explode in the media. The only real major bonus for the Church has been the visitors to to the Draper Open house. Early estimates on visitors is close to 700,000 people during the weeks it was open to the public! 700k visitors! Utah has only 1.2 million or so residents! That's a lot freakin people! The worst possible scandal in my opinion for the Church isn't these dumb anti-Mormons with nothing better to do with their time than rehash, repackage and resell old material, was the Prop 8 frenzy. There has been major negative bad press, unjustly about that, including vandalism, and book burnings!

When we, as LDS, go out of our way to express outrage and indignation (however righteous it may be), we pique others' curiosity. People begin wondering what all the fuss is about and, in the Krakauer case, they pick up a title that never would have caught their attention otherwise. Some of those were likely persuaded by the author's unfounded accusations; others were not.

In any case, we should have learned a lesson from this ordeal. And yet, when HBO revealed a couple weeks ago that they would be recreating the endowment ceremony for their polygamy-themed drama "Big Love," the Mormon community was up in arms all over again. Now don't get me wrong. I find HBO's decision abhorrent, and I can hardly fathom how executives ethically justified using a highly sacred religious ceremony for the purposes of entertainment. I think the Church said it best in its official statement: this depiction was done in "appallingly bad taste."

Unfortunately, the LDS Church should have completely ignored the HBO special episode, what they should have done is what they are doing now, hindsight however, is 20/20. They should have flooded YouTube with Temple Videos, about their purposes etc, just like they are doing now. However, addressing HBO directly, may have helped in an odd way. The Temple Video the Church put out rocketed to the top spot, as one of the most watched videos on Youtube, quite a feat considering all the crap on Youtube. Had they not put out the press release like they did, maybe it wouldn't have fanned the flames so much, but I think the PR department got a little carried away.

But in that same statement, titled "The Publicity Dilemma," the Church explains why it does not call for boycotts: "Such a step would simply generate the kind of controversy that the media loves and in the end would increase audiences for the series."

Individual members, of course, are free to boycott whatever they want. But is it worth it? Very rarely have such boycotts actually persuaded media outlets to cancel planned programming, or book stores to pull books from their shelves. If I had a subscription to HBO, I would likely cancel it once I heard about this episode, but I would do so privately. I would not make a public spectacle of my disapproval.

It would seem more productive to invite my neighbors to temple visitors' centers or open houses so that they themselves can understand why HBO's actions were inappropriate. To avoid fanning the flame of controversy in the future, I believe we should try to avoid the "shocked and appalled" syndrome. Keeping our eyes peeled for potential attacks on our faith will almost always lead to an over-reaction on our part and, consequently, more attention given to our aggressors. Maybe, then, we can put the Mormon-mocking industry on the list of bailout-beggars.

The major problem of course, is now you and I are in fact fanning the flames as I type this. Giving it so much as a little attention, whether we like it or not, only tosses more gas on the fire.