Part One of "The Mormons" on PBS
Reviewed by Bill McKeever
Amidst a lot of anticipation from Mormons and non-Mormons alike, Helen Whitney’s two-part, four-hour documentary on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was met with mixed reaction by a larger than normal audience.
For the sake of clarity, quotations from “The Mormons” will be in bold italicized type, whereas quotations from outside sources are simply italicized. The program can be viewed online in its entirety.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported:
“According to Nielsen Media Research, Monday's episode on the history of the LDS Church drew a 17.9 rating and Tuesday's segment earned a 17.7. Normally, KUED's weekly nighttime ratings are between 1.8 and 2. Ratings refer to the percentage of Utah's 839,000 television households that are watching a particular program. Nationally, the series was also was a relative hit. At a 3 rating, the documentary captured nearly double the viewers of a normal PBS weeknight, said KBYU spokesman Jim Bell.”
Part one was divided into six “Acts:” "Revelation," "The Saints," "Persecution," "Exodus," "Mountain Meadows Massacre" and "Polygamy,” and began with a statement by Ken Verdoia (a non-Mormon, but nonetheless a prominent figure in Salt Lake City public broadcasting). “In the 19th century to call someone a Mormon was akin to calling someone a Muslim terrorist.” A bit of hyperbole? Perhaps. While it is true that many came to vilify Joseph Smith and his followers, history does show that there were also others who were very kind to the LDS people. Sadly, some of the kindness tended to wane as the Mormons started to wear out their welcome.
The narrator, David Ogden Stiers of M.A.S.H. television fame (Dr. Winchester), started off with this telling comment. “Mormon history begins with Joseph Smith. He is the alpha and omega of the Latter-day Saints.” Mormons might wince at this comment for its bluntness, but it does contain an element of truth. For many Mormons, there is no salvation without Joseph Smith. Without Smith there is no Mormonism.
I imagine it was difficult for average listeners to know the “players.” For the most part, interviewees were labeled as merely “historian,” or “author.” Rarely were those interviewed labeled so as to know their immediate bias. Some LDS bloggers complained about this lack of identification. Knowing who the “apostates” are is important to Mormons because it makes it much easier for “TBM’s (true believing Mormons) to brush aside statements deemed critical. Without this distinction decision making becomes more complex. Judging from some Mormon blogs, it appears that honest comments from interviewed members that came across as less than flattering were erroneously thought to be “anti-Mormon rhetoric.”
Joseph Smith, The First Vision
The first episode dealt primarily with the early history of Mormonism and the personality of Joseph Smith. Said Edwin Firmage, Jr., “I think behind every great religious figure there’s probably not a little charlatan, there’s definitely a lot of shadow, and that’s what makes him interesting.” Firmage noted that “Joseph was a prophet,” equal to that of “Muhammad, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Moses.” I found this comparison interesting since Christians do not at all consider Muhammad any more a true prophet than Smith. Was Firmage implying that the four Old Testament prophets in his list were also little charlatans? I have no reason to believe he meant that, but I thought the comparison was a bit awkward.
Any good retelling of the Mormon story would be remiss without looking into Smith’s First Vision. Though a detailed list of Smith’s different versions of this important event (or non event depending on your perspective) was not given, listeners were told, “In the beginning Joseph would tell only his family what happened in the grove. Over the years he would record several versions of what he saw.”
Mormon author Greg Prince correctly noted, “Subsequently, over the next twelve years there were other versions that emerged from Joseph Smith where the story got more detailed more colorful and one of the later versions became the official version.”
Ken Clark, identified as a former LDS educator, spoke of Smith’s evolving First Vision:
“Finally in 1838 we have God the Father and the Son visiting him telling him to join none of the other churches. And it begs the questions, was Joseph building a story as he went because the story certainly evolved and the story certainly took on more miraculous and remarkable characteristics. And he certainly became a greater character with greater status in God’s eyes in each of these stories with a greater work to do in each of these stories.”
Some Mormons are crowing over the inclusion of Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Seminary. Mouw is a Christian apologist in the literal sense in that he loves to apologize on behalf of Christians who he feels misrepresents Mormonism. It is easy to see why Mormons love him. “I really don’t believe that [Smith] was simply making up a story that he knew to be false in order to manipulate people and to gain power over a religious movement. And so I live with the mystery,” Mouw said. How do Mormons interpret this? Since Mouw makes it clear that he does not believe Smith’s story, are Mormons going to conclude that Smith, though perhaps not an outright liar, was really deluded into thinking he had a vision and was merely expounding what he “imagined” to be true?
Folk Magic, Seer Stones, and the Book of Mormon
Smith’s involvement in folk magic and his use of a seer stone was included in the piece. According to Stiers’ voiceover, “Joseph looked into magic stones and had visions of barrels of buried treasure and was hired to lead others in search of gold.” Ken Clark elaborated when he stated, “Joseph’s preferred method of finding buried treasure was to place a peep stone in a hat and draw the hat over his face to exclude the light, and then look into the stone and the location of the treasure would be identified.”
BYU professor and Mormon apologist Dr. Daniel Peterson, identified in the documentary merely for his involvement in Islamic Studies, confirmed Smith’s use of a seer stone during Smith’s “translating” of the Book of Mormon.
“We know that Joseph didn’t translate the way that a scholar would translate. He didn’t know Egyptian. There were a couple of means that were prepared for this. One was he used an instrument that was found with the plates that was called the Urim and Thummim. This is a kind of a divinatory device that goes back into Old Testament times. Actually most of the translation was done using something called a seer stone. He would put the stone in the bottom of a hat, presumably to exclude surrounding light. And then he would put his face into the hat. It’s a kind of a strange image for us.”
Such a comment will probably come as a shock to many Latter-day Saints since church-approved art work consistently shows Smith translating the plates while looking at them in a prayerful manner. Wrote one blogger:
“What’s ironic in a sort of sad yet funny way is that people who for some reason still remain uninformed about Joseph Smith’s seer stone may think, after watching last night’s documentary, that Daniel C. Peterson, the “Islamic Studies Professor”, is some sort of anti-mormon because his BYU affiliation was not mentioned. I find that sadly funny, for some reason…”
Smith’s visitation in 1823 from an angel he called Moroni is addressed, but no mention of the fact that Smith taught in 1838 that it was an angel named Nephi, not Moroni, who Smith said came to him and told him of the gold plates.
Dr. Michael Coe, professor emeritus of anthropology and an expert in Central American studies, wrote in 1973:
“Mormon archaeologists over the years have almost unanimously accepted the Book of Mormon as an accurate, historical account of the New World peoples between about 2000 B.C. and A.D. 421. They believe that Smith could translate hieroglyphs, whether ‘Reformed Egyptian’ or ancient American.... Let me now state uncategorically that as far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the foregoing to be true, and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group.... The bare facts of the matter are that nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document relating to the history of the early migrants to our hemisphere” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1973, “Mormons and Archaeology: An Outside View,” pp. 41, 42, 46).
Twenty years later (1993) I asked Dr. Coe if he continued to hold to those views. He replied,
“I haven’t changed my views about the Book of Mormon since my 1973 article. I have seen no archaeological evidence before or since that date which would convince me that it is anything but a fanciful creation by an unusually gifted individual living in upstate New York in the early 19th century.”
Dr. Coe’s interview in Whitney’s documentary showed that he continues to doubt Smith’s veracity:
“I really think that Joseph Smith, like Shamans everywhere, started out faking it. I have to believe this, that he didn’t believe this at all. That he was out to impress. But he got caught up in the mythology that he created. This is what happens to shamans, they begin to believe that they can do these things and then it becomes a revelation, they’re speaking to God. Joseph Smith had a sense of destiny, and most fakers don’t have this, and this is how he transformed something that I think was clearly made up into something that was absolutely convincing.”
God and Revelations
In 1997 Mormon President Gordon Hinckley hedged when asked if the God of Mormonism was once a human. Time magazine reporter David Van Biema wrote,
“On whether his church still holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain. ‘I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it…I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t think others know a lot about it’” (Time, August 4, 1997, p.56).
However, in the PBS documentary Mormon author Terryl Givens seemed to have no problem understanding this unique LDS teaching when he elaborated on how Smith taught “that God himself was once as we are, that he is embodied.”
Latter-day revelation is a characteristic of Mormonism that many members feel is a major element separating the LDS Church from the rest of “apostate Christendom.” Mormon Historian Kathleen Flake explained that
“Joseph Smith was the Henry Ford of revelation. He wanted every home to have one and the revelation he had in mind was the revelation he thought he’d had, which was, seeing God. And so for Joseph Smith seeing God was what it was to being religious. And so he sets about duplicating that original experience for everybody else. Revelation is everything to this church. It is revelation or nothing for these people.”
Unfortunately, Smith himself was not immune to false revelation. For example, when he received “a revelation through the stone” to sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon in Canada, his emissaries came back empty-handed. Smith conceded that, “Some revelations are of God; some revelations are of man; and some revelations are of the devil.” (Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:162-66).
Still, Mormons are told that “Revelations from the prophets of God are not like offerings at the cafeteria, some to be selected and others disregarded” (James E. Faust, “Lord, I Believe; Help Thou Mine Unbelief,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2003, p.22). If Smith fell victim to a false revelation, how can members be assured modern leaders can’t be deceived? Mormons are encouraged to have revelation, but it must be in harmony with the leadership. If it is not, open dissent is not an option.
Repeated a number of times in the film was Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks’ stern warning, “It’s wrong to criticize leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true.” Do Latter-day Saints really see such a statement resonating with non-Mormon viewers, or will it confirm the notion that the LDS Church is an organization that is, at its core, authoritarian and anti-intellectual?
Persecution and Retaliation
The persecution of the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois was covered in the film, as it should have been; however, I felt that far too much was left out of the discussion, thus placing viewers at a contextual disadvantage. Not surprisingly, the Mormons were portrayed pretty much as innocent victims; yet Mormon historians James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard have written a side of the story not found in the film:
“The Saints themselves may not have been totally without blame in the matter. The feelings of the Missourians, even though misplaced, were undoubtedly intensified by the rhetoric of the gathering itself. They were quick to listen to the boasting of a few overzealous Saints who too-loudly declared a divine right to the land. As enthusiastic millennialists, they proclaimed that the time of the gentiles was short, and they were perhaps too quick to quote the revelation that said that 'the Lord willeth that the disciples and the children of men should open their hearts, even to purchase this whole region of country, as soon as time will permit’” (The Story of the Latter-day Saints, p. 83).
Historian Will Bagley correctly noted in his interview that locals got along fine with the Mormons “until Joseph Smith came along.” The film mentioned Governor Boggs' “extermination order,” but failed to mention Sidney Rigdon’s 1838 "Fourth of July Oration" that threatened the state of Missouri with what Rigdon called a "war of extermination between the Mormons and the non-Mormon citizens." Smith certainly didn’t ease tensions when he reprinted Rigdon’s speech into a pamphlet.
Making it clear that Mormons were not at all pacifists, the voiceover stated, “The Mormons retaliated. They drove Missourians off their land and burned their homes.”
When speaking of Mormon persecution, the tragedy at Haun’s Mill is rarely overlooked. The film spoke of a Mormon who was “hacked to death by a corn-cutter.” The brevity of this episode in the film fails to mention that the atrocities at Haun’s Mill stemmed in part from an incident a week earlier at what has come to be called “the Battle of Crooked River.” Former Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn explained on page 100 of his book, A Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power:
"A generally unacknowledged dimension of both the extermination order and the Haun's Mill massacre, however, is that they resulted from Mormon actions in the Battle of Crooked River. Knowingly or not, Mormons had attacked state troops, and this had a cascade effect… upon receiving news of the injuries and death of state troops at Crooked River, Governor Boggs immediately drafted his extermination order on 27 October 1838 because the Mormons 'have made war upon the people of this state.' Worse, the killing of one Missourian and mutilation of another while he was defenseless at Crooked River led to the mad-dog revenge by Missourians in the slaughter at Haun's Mill" (Origins of Power, p.100)
The mutilated Missourian was Samuel Tarwater who was left for dead by the fleeing state militia. Quinn noted how enraged Mormons mutilated the unconscious Tarwater "with their swords, striking him lengthwise in the mouth, cutting off his under teeth, and breaking his lower jaw; cutting off his cheeks…and leaving him [for] dead" (p.99). Tarwater survived to press charges.
When dissidents of Smith’s church publish The Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper exposing his abuse of power and his secret practice of polygamy, “He reacts in a rage. He orders its destruction.” True enough. However, when things got too hot for Smith he decided to escape the consequences. Ken Verdoia acknowledges this but says, “for one reason or another he turns the horse and goes back to face arrest.” “One reason or another”? LDS Seventy Milton R. Hunter offered a more complete explanation in a 1948 conference message:
“When he, Hyrum and others were making plans to flee to the Rocky Mountains for safety, Emma sent word for Joseph to return because the Saints were accusing him of being a coward. Knowing full well that they would be killed if they should return, he turned to his brother Hyrum and said: "If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself," (D.H.C. 6:549) and so they returned to Nauvoo” (Conference Report, April 1948, p.31).
The story of Smith's death is dramatically told, but no mention is made how he fought back with a smuggled six-shooter.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Several Latter-day Saints complained that “The Mormons” spent too much time on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. On September 11, 1857 a group of Mormons joined with local Indians to murder 120 men, women, and children heading to California from Arkansas during a time in Mormon history known as the Reformation. Will Bagley explains that during this time the Mormons had run out every non-Mormon government appointed official in the territory, and that “religious leaders were engaged in an orgy of fanatical rhetoric.” Bagley knows his Mountain Meadows history. He is the author of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. In his interview he states that, “for any historian it is a horrific, troubling event.” He poignantly asks, “How did these decent, religious men who had sacrificed so much for what they believed in, how did they become mass murderers?”
Ken Verdoia spoke of three ingredients that led to a horrible conclusion in the Utah territory in 1857.
Political tension between the Mormons and Washington, D.C. caused President James Buchanan to send a large portion of the United States Army to quell what he feels is a Mormon rebellion.
In Arkansas, Mormonism’s “beloved” Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt “is murdered in Arkansas while on his mission.”
A wagon train happened to be coming through Utah from Arkansas about the time the Mormons learn of the death of Pratt.
While I agree that these three elements coming together at the same time led to the tragedy at Mountain Meadows, Verdoia’s description of Parley Pratt’s role is incredibly simplistic. The fact is Pratt was killed by an enraged, albeit abusive, husband named Hector McLean. In his book Bagley writes, “Without benefit of divorce, Brigham Young sealed Eleanor McLean to Pratt for time and eternity on November 14, 1855, in Salt Lake City’s Endowment House as the Apostle’s twelfth wife” (Blood of the Prophets, p.9).
To be sure, the Fancher/Baker wagon train was in the wrong place at the time. Circumstances were such that the Mormon militia in Southern Utah were placed on high alert. The voiceover stated how Brigham Young had “promised the Federal Government that he would protect emigrants passing through Utah, but he had also told local Native American leaders that they now had his permission to steal cattle from these wagon trains.” LDS historian Leonard states, “There’s a new policy, we’ll allow the Indians to take the cattle which will teach the government a lesson that they can’t control the Indians. So the Cedar City leaders decided to take some cattle, using the Indians, and by the way, if some of those bad guys are killed, we won’t be sorry.”
Bagley spoke of a council meeting held by the Mormons where it was “decided that every that every adult who could testify or bear witness would have to die.” Only 17 small children were spared.
Judith Freeman attributed Mormon participation to “this Mormon principle of perfect obedience. These men were ordered to appear at Mountain Meadows so in a way they were victims of their own devotion and obedience and if you can get people to believe that they are doing God’s will you can get them to do anything.”
Bagley is convinced that Brigham Young ordered the attack on the emigrants. “After having studied this for a decade and having looked at it in great detail, I’m convinced that this was done explicitly at Brigham Young’s orders. Nothing happened in Utah territory that Brigham Young didn’t know about…it was a political act to demonstrate the Mormons’ control of the overland road and it was ordered from the very top.” Mormon historian Glen Leonard disagreed and insisted that Brigham “didn’t order it done, and he didn’t condone it.” Many believe the hard evidence has long-been destroyed, but few deny that Brigham Young was a major influence in the cover-up that eventually ended with the execution of John D. Lee in 1877. Lee was the scapegoat among many LDS participants.
Elder Dallin Oaks offered an emotional recap of the events on that day and admitted Mormons were involved in the killings, however, while he admits it was a “terrible thing to contemplate,” and an “extreme atrocity” by members of his faith, he stopped short of offering an apology on behalf of the Church. To this date the LDS Church has failed to offer the families of the victims such a condolence.
The Rise and Fall of Plural Marriage
The sixth and final act of part one of “The Mormons” dealt with polygamy. Ken Verdoia bemoaned the fact that the LDS Church in Utah is still thought by many to continue practicing plural marriage. The narration stated that, “Overall 20-30 percent of the Saints were polygamists, most of them from the leadership who could afford it.” This number conforms somewhat closely to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (3:1095):
“Although it was known by some people, it was not publicly announced or proclaimed until 1852 (3:1094). We read that the exact percentage of participation is unknown but that ‘a maximum of from 20% to 25% of Latter-day Saint adults were members of polygamous households’ (3:1095). Adults? Or married adults? Or should it, as I think, be stated so as to include all family members? Since the degree of participation varied from year to year and from place to place, we are still far from having a precise reading. The article under ‘History of the Church’ states more carefully that ‘in some communities as much as twenty to twenty-five percent of the Latter-day Saint population eventually lived in polygamous households, with most men who practiced polygamy having one to four plural wives’ (2:617).”
It is difficult for most people to put a happy face on the practice of polygamy. Judith Freeman describes her great-grandmother’s devastation when her great-grandfather announced that he was told by the bishop that he was to take a 16-year-old as his plural wife. She recounts how they tried to make it work, “because again, the idea of perfect obedience.” As Freeman explained, “You simply can’t say, I won’t do this. You can’t say that and still be a good Mormon.”
Though the film correctly states that polygamy became public in 1852, Ken Clark noted that Smith was talking about polygamy in scriptural terms “as early as 1831 and 1832. He had an affair or, if you want to call it a marriage, during the Kirtland period to a 19-year-old who served as a maid in the Smith home.” The film did not mention any details, but Mormon historian Richard S. Van Wagoner, in his book, Mormon Polygamy, writes, “If Smith did take a plural wife in Kirtland during the early 1830s under such a system, the woman was likely Fanny Alger. [William] McLellin's 1872 letter described Alger's relationship with Smith. ‘Again I told [your mother],’ the former apostle wrote, that ‘I heard that one night she missed Joseph and Fanny Alger. She went to the barn and saw him and Fanny in the barn together alone. She looked through a crack and saw the transaction!!!’” (p.5.) Van Wagoner notes that Alger did not begin working in the Smith house until 1835. Smith was ten years her senior.
Mormon historian Richard Bushman, author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, admitted that Smith later began “seriously to take more wives in rapid order. Maybe 30 wives in total. Ten of them married to other men. There was pressure put on these women. They were told that this was the lord’s will and he was the Lord’s prophet. And that if they were to please God they had to comply.” Bushman also conceded that these relationships led to an alienation of his own wife, Emma. I am curious as to how many Mormons will digest this; especially in light of Mormon Apostle M. Russell Ballard’s conference message where he stated that,
“False prophets and false teachers are also those who attempt to change the God-given and scripturally based doctrines that protect the sanctity of marriage, the divine nature of the family, and the essential doctrine of personal morality. They advocate a redefinition of morality to justify fornication, adultery, and homosexual relationships” (M. Russell Ballard, “Beware of false prophets and teachers,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 1999, p.64).
Does the devotion to Smith play such a high role among LDS members that they feel that only he is exempt from this description?
Kathleen Flake asked, “The question arises did Smith lie to his wife? Probably so…We do know that he had marriages that she didn’t know about and that they were with women who lived under her roof, and they were with her friends, and that of course is a nightmare for anyone.”
Ken Clark added, “But for me as I studied the issue, I came to the conclusion that his sexual desire drove the practice.”
The film recounted the pressure put upon the LDS Church by the Federal Government over plural marriage and Wilford Woodruff’s Manifesto that he “only years later described as a revelation.” Viewers were told, “If you read that statement it is little more than a piece of advice. It is not a commandment. There is no ‘thus saith the lord’ in the document. It is not described as a revelation. And I think that Wilford Woodruff, and some of those authorities working with him, simply looked upon the Manifesto as a device to somehow get the government to back off and they hoped that the Manifesto would save them.”
Part one concludes with a look at modern polygamy among the fundamentalist groups. Valerie Nielson explained, “Joseph Smith told us that if we wanted to become Gods we had to do as God had done and God lived polygamy.” Brigham Young made a similar charge in 1866 when he declared, “The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy” (Journal of Discourses 11:269).
I tend to agree with some Mormons that the segment on fundamentalist Mormonism was a distraction from the title of the documentary. Perhaps Whitney could have avoided this criticism by simply mentioning how the legacy of Presidents Smith, Young, and Taylor lives on in these groups. She did give the Mormons ample opportunity to make it clear that polygamy was not a part of their current practice. However, perhaps listeners should have been told that its role in a Mormon’s afterlife is not so concrete. While many modern Mormons wish to separate themselves from plural marriage and those awful “fundamentalists,” the official LDS Church website never comes out and clearly says polygamy is gone forever. “Question: Is polygamy gone forever from the Church? We only know what the Lord has revealed through His prophets, that plural marriage has been stopped in the Church. Anything else is speculative and unwarranted.”(Scroll to the bottom of the page.)
If plural marriage is really a dead issue, is the LDS Church ready to renounce the following? “Obviously the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millennium” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.578).
Conclusion
I beg to differ with any Latter-day Saint who thinks part one of “The Mormons” was a slam-dunk piece that will forever remove suspicions or recruit a lot of new members. Many Latter-day Saints might try to pretend it was a positive piece, but I think honest Mormons will admit that it contained some very embarrassing content. That being the case, I am sure non-members will also walk away quite surprised as they learn more about the history of Mormonism that even the Mormon Church itself refuses to “shout from the housetops.”
The Mormon Church’s response to this film overall was interesting. It noted that, “Aspects of the faith covered in the programs were broad and diverse, and the broadcasts are resulting in an equally diverse range of opinions and responses from viewers.” Having personally read numerous comments from Mormon blog sites and editorials, it is clear that much of this diversity is among Mormons themselves. Perhaps this is why the LDS leadership has taken a more cautious approach regarding how it responds.
Personally, the only Mormons I see genuinely getting excited over part one are the more intellectual-type LDS members who see this as a bit of fresh air. Some LDS members actually want to see some of the more hidden aspects of LDS history brought out into the light. A common complaint on Mormon blog sites of a more intellectual bent is the lack of forthrightness when it comes to Mormonism’s past. Many are calling for what is called an “inoculation” of true history. However, such openness will come with a very high price.
Let me also say that I think part one contained some solid responses to many of Mormonism’s sanitized historical myths. However, I find it interesting that while the LDS Church gave a blanket denunciation of the Jesus Christ/Joseph Smith DVD distributed in March of 2007, it didn’t dare condemn Whitney’s work even though both films covered some of the same historical ground. I guess it is difficult to call the work “anti-Mormon” when you have faithful members admitting on camera to troublesome issues. I find it ironic that when Christians point out that Smith used a hat and rock to bring forth the Book of Mormon, they are labeled anti-Mormon; when a BYU professor does it, that’s scholarship. When Christians insist that Joseph Smith’s had marriage relationships with married women, that’s mean-spirited bigotry; when a Mormon historian concedes this is true, that’s thought provoking. Go figure.
My biggest disappointment is that “The Mormons” contained very little in the way of a theological response to Smith’s doctrinal claims. If the Mormon Church wants to be known as Christian, shouldn’t viewers understand the theological reasons why Christians have been reluctant to grant it this title? Still, I can only hope that enough was included that will cause thoughtful people to see that Mormonism still has a side to it that should cause many to question its claims.
Stay tuned for Sharon Lindbloom’s review of Part Two of “The Mormons”…