Reader responses regarding "The Mormons" PBS series

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 3, 2007

If this is supposed to be a non-biased program, why present everything with music that is lethargic and in a minor key, dark pictures that are spooky, and leaving one with the feeling that you have just watched a Halloween movie? I feel like I have to turn on the lights while watching it just to get through it.

The feeling I get being a member of this church is directly opposite to the feeling I got when I watched this documentary. When applying the teaching of this gospel, I feel peace and happiness which are in direct juxtaposition to your portrayal. -- Sarah, Pittsburgh, PA

I enjoyed a great deal of the Mormon documentary. I think they spent too much time and effort on interviewing those who were practicing polygamy. This was of no interest to me and my family and shouldn't have been such an issue to anyone else and had nothing to do with being a Mormon. -- Sandra Porter

Although I believe this was a legitimate effort to make a quality documentary about the LDS faith, it didn't achieve its objective. Too much time was spent on the sensational/speculative and not enough on those things that constitute the real foundation of this faith. Some of the music sounded macabre and foreboding; some of the images/pictures were grotesque and obscene. On the positive side, a fair amount of the commentary was objective and informative. -- no name

It was better than most....still, too much dwelling on the sensational for me to call it a "true"....objective piece. I guess it will depend on the area of the country that you live as to how it will be received. Here, in the middle of the world headquarters for the Assemblies of God and the Baptists, with 3 Bible Colleges I think only some will be impressed. We have come a long ways in this area, but the 'anti' sentiment is still alive and often ferocious. I manned PBS pledge telephones when the special on the Nauvoo Temple was shown a few years ago and got more than one very hostile call demanding to know why such a disgusting and undesirable subject as the Mormon's was being shown. So, I will be interested to hear in the future how it played in this area. -- M. Barnes

I thought the information was accurate, but one sided.

In the case of the destruction of the printing press, it was an unforgivable public outcry for Joseph Smith to destroy a printing press that was printing lies mingled with limited truth, but in the same documentary, part of a movies is shown where the mob is destroying a "Mormon" press that was printing the Doctrine and Covenants. There was no public out cry and no one was arrested, and yet in the same incident Mormons were tarred and feathered, killed and/or murdered.

In the case of plural celestial marriage, there is a scripture in the Book of Mormon, where the prophet Jacob explains the only circumstances when more than one wife is permitted:

28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.

29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.