The Mormons

On May 1 and 2, PBS aired a two part documentary on the 'Mormons'. I was pleasantly surprised as to what I saw. There was a fairly balanced amount of positives and negatives, as well as truth and errors of fact. All in all, I think there was a light cast on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which will introduce people to the faith in a positive way.
I have several complaints however. These are included in the following list:
- The prophet Joseph Smith was portrayed as a power hungry dictator, who had crazy visions. The descriptions given of his vision were told by PBS in a mystical sort of way. Now folks, it was either real or imaginary, history or make believe, it has withstood almost 200 years of scrutiny, give it some credit please.
- Issues that are not really issues were dwelt on too much. Who really cares about the Mountain Meadow Massacre or polygamy? There is no evidence that supports the argument that Brigham Young ordered the massacre, and the church forbids plural marriage. These were two topics that did not deserve about one sixth of the broadcast time.
- Credible interviews... who were these people? Where did they come from? The people from the church did very well in explaining the church and its doctrines, but many of the non-LDS people were... I don't know, what were they? People trying to cast a bad light?

Regardless of all of the things that I took exception with, I must give credit where credit is due. I was impressed for the most part by the last half of the documentary (May 2). There was a huge emphasis put on the most important parts of 'Mormonism', such as the temples and the family. These two topics are among the most important to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Good job PBS! The program was well put together, and there was a great introduction to 'Mormonism' given to those who watched the program. This is much better than a current film coming out of Hollywood. Thanks for making us look good to the world.