The Church In Recent Media

Sent from Royal Skousen — The spine and the cover design for Royal Skousen’s second edition of “The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text”

My most recent article for Meridian Magazine has now gone up: “The Journey to the Earliest Book of Mormon Text: Royal Skousen’s 36-year Project.” I hope to see y9u on Saturday, 10 August 2024, between twelve o’clock noon and 3 PM.

I also hope that you will enjoy this new series of short video features from the Interpreter Foundation and that, if you do, you’ll share them further. Here is the latest, entitled “Oliver Cowdery was sincere” and featuring the always-interesting Latter-day Saint historian Don Bradley:

Coverage of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the news and in popular media is sometimes friendly and pleasant, often reflexively hostile, and at other times merely weird. I offer here three recent and quite different examples:

(1)

So the Church announces that a new medical school will be launched at Brigham Young University, with a special focus — though, I presume, not sole focus — on the humanitarian issues that face the Church in its global mission. Good news, right? More trained people to treat injuries and fight diseases and promote human welfare. Well, maybe, but first we have to think of “problems.” Will the new medical school vigorously pursue gender reassignment surgery? Will it focus on the particular health problems faced by practicing homosexuals? Will it regard abortion on demand as a central sacrament of the faith? After all, these are the most important and urgent health changes facing the world today. Consider this article, in Newsweek: “New Mormon-Funded Medical School Raises Questions.” (Please note, by the way, that the Newsweek reporter goes, for answers to her questions, to a Catholic medical ethicist at Georgetown University.)

But my attention was particularly caught by some of the letters from readers that followed the article, according to which degrees from BYU’s medical school will be worthless because faith and medical science are incompatible and because BYU’s medical training will focus mostly on “magical underwear,” priesthood blessings, and the like, rather than on mainstream medical methodologies.

This about a church that venerates a now-retired heart surgeon — Russell M. Nelson, M.D., Ph.D. — as its president and living prophet.

(2)

And, of course, gender roles in the Church come in for particular, and often particularly indignant, attention. Here are five recent articles on one specific iteration of the subject, drawn from widely disparate sources:

Hindustani Times: “Viral video: Millionaire JetBlue heir gifts wife an egg apron for her birthday. She wanted Greek holiday”

The Times (of London): “Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children): Hannah Neeleman, known to her nine million followers as Ballerina Farm, milks cows, gives birth without pain relief and breastfeeds at beauty pageants. Is this an empowering new model of womanhood — or a hammer blow for feminism?”

The negative judgment in the Times article above is palpable and pervasive. Less so, I think, in this follow-up piece:

The Times (of London): “My day with the trad wife queen and what it taught me: An interview published last weekend with internet star Hannah Neeleman at her Utah home, Ballerina Farm, has sparked a global social media debate. Our writer, Megan Agnew, revisits her time with the mother of eight”

Deseret News: “Ballerina Farm sets the record straight: ‘We are co-parents, co-CEOs’: Hannah Neeleman responds to a viral article about her family, calling it ‘an attack on my family and my marriage’”

Some people apparently believe that women should be allowed to choose any path in life that they desire, entirely free of patriarchal oppression, but also that some paths deserve neither respect nor toleration.

(3)

This seems somehow a bit different from the Walt Disney with which I grew up:

The Daily Mail: “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Meet the sizzling Utah momfluencers behind scandalous new reality show about SWINGING TikTok stars”

Manchester Evening News: “Viral Mormon sex scandal which went viral on TikTok set for reality TV series” It seems, incidentally, that the viral scandal went viral

Variety: “‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Chronicles Swinging Sex Scandal in New Hulu Series”

Salt Lake Tribune: “Criticism starting over ‘Mormon Wives’ TV series, before anyone has seen it: The Hulu documentary series profiles Latter-day Saint mom influencers, and the scandal that made news worldwide.” Golly. Why isn’t everybody just pleased as punch by this important new work of art? It promises — don’t you imagine? — a rich experience of moral and religious reflection.

sdjfoahdsjanfoaij — We’re staying a little bit north of this inlet at Depoe Bay, Oregon. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

Well, we took a break from our daily routine of reading, writing, walking along the cliff’s edge, and looking out at the ocean to go for a whale-watching cruise out of the tiny harbor of Depoe Bay. It is, after all, Schweizer Bundesfeiertag (Swiss National Day), so — for that and another reason — the day seemed well worth celebrating.

There is a resident pod of whales just off the coast here, and we’ve actually seen them from our condo here on previous stays. Apparently, however, the whales have been curiously shy for the past couple of weeks or longer, although I did see at least one and probably two while out for a stroll yesterday afternoon. There were reputedly two that had been located this morning, although we saw only one, pretty much right outside of the entrance to the Bay. We watched it for quite a while and then headed north in quest of the second. But we never found it, so we returned and watched the first one again. I also spotted a seal, and others saw a large jellyfish.

My wife and I enjoy watching whales but, most of all, we simply enjoy being out on the ocean. And the weather earlier today was spectacular, so we were pretty satisfied.. And afterwards — this is sure to send some of my critics into a meltdown of lament and indignation — we enjoyed our second meal of the trip at Tidal Raves, which offers magnificent views of the sea and the Bay along with wonderful (sea)food. The clam chowder wasn’t my favorite, but the bread was really good, the Dungeness crab cakes were the best we’ve tasted, and the main dishes were all extremely good. (Between us, on the two days, we enjoyed — and shared — their herb-crusted local rockfish, their cioppino, their green curry, and their special local halibut dish.) Even their ice water — I’m not joking — was really cold and unusually good. I recommend them if you’re ever passing through these parts.

Posted from Depoe Bay, Oregon