Adventures in Mormonism

Joel Campbell — an assistant professor of journalism at BYU, who blogs at the LDS Newsline site — has graded (A-F) some recent efforts at press coverage of the LDS Church and its beliefs. He’s pretty blunt and not afraid to name names:

“D” Work: In news reporting classes that I teach I talk a lot about “relevance” and a “news peg.” I couldn’t find much of either in this very long piece about Mitt Romney’s involvement in the building of the Boston Temple in Belmont, Mass. Based on the article’s sheer verbosity, you would think Romney played some leading role in building the temple and selecting the site. Although it is framed with the sinister headline, “Mormon Temple Casts a Shadow,” the article doesn’t make that case. It was written by WaPo Style writer Sridhar Pappu, who appears to be assigned to provide some meaningful narratives on the candidates. This one is a dull story and not too meaningful at that. Maybe Pappu felt like he had more to write after his novella on Romney ran in the September 2005 Atlantic, in which he asked Romney “How Mormon are you?” and then quizzed him about his undergarments. It was certainly one of the low points of the coverage of the presidential campaign.

Read the whole thing. ..bruce..

My former wife, Marla, bought me two Marvin Payne CDs for Christmas this year: “Ships of Dust” (1971) and “Houses and Towns” (1973). Back when we were both undergrads at BYU, Marvin used to go door-to-door through the Provo student apartment complexes with his guitar and a backpack full of albums for sale — which is how Marla bought her original copy of “Ships of Dust”.

I used to sing the title song “Ships of Dust” as a lullaby to our daughters, Jacqui and Bethan, when they were about 8 and 5, respectively. I sang it again tonight as a lullaby for my 5-year-old granddaughter, Sydney. Here are the lyrics:

We wandered through the shipyards,
through the timber and the rope,
and the wise men saw the longing in our eyes.
So they made for each of us
a ship of dust, with sails of trust,
and the sun behind us vanished from the skies.

Now it’s a long time since the sunset,
and the time we raised the sails,
and the time the old shipbuilders waited for.
There are wonders in the night;
there are strange and dangerous shades of light,
but the dawn is gonna see me on that shore.

Sweet stars, mark the night.
Fair winds, arc the right waves over my prow—
I am homeward.

Wooden wheels and oaken rudders
bend like grass against the sea,
and the canvas fails and falls against our hope.
I am climbing on the mast
and I see a trace of dawn at last
and I feel a strange new feeling in the rope.

Now the sun splits the horizon
where I thought the beach to be,
and the graveyard for the ships done with the sea
But I’m on a sea of glass
and the light is more than sun can pass
and the deck is turning silver under me.

Sweet stars, mark my mind.
Fair winds, you can find me sailing your source—
I am homeward.

Words and music © 1971, Marvin Payne

Sydney fell sweetly asleep while I sang. ..bruce..

OK, so I’m finishing my preparations this morning for teaching my Sunday School lesson (on the book of Revelation), and the thought strikes me: how many folks out there (and by “folks”, I mean evangelical Christians) believe, fear, or suspect that Mitt Romney may be the ‘Anti-Christ’ alluded to in Revelation by John?

Well, a very simple Google search (Mitt Romney AntiChrist) turns up about 26,000 hits. But, as it turns out, Romney is dead last on the list of major presidential contenders. Here are some searches for the other candidates as well as the current and immediate past Presidents and Vice-Presidents:

• Mike Huckabee: 156,000 hits
• Fred Thompson: 108,000 hits
• Bill Clinton: 84,900 hits
• Rudi Giuliani: 84,800 hits
• Ron Paul: 82,700 hits
• George W. Bush: 64,800 hits
• Hillary Clinton: 63,500 hits
• Al Gore: 62,500 hits
• John Edwards: 61,200 hits
• Dick Cheney: 40,800
• Barack Obama: 31,700 hits
• John McCain: 28,500 hits
• Mitt Romney: 26,000 hits

Admittedly, this is a crude and inaccurate measure — all I’m checking for is the presence of the word ‘AntiChrist’ along with the candidate’s first and last name. But the results certainly are counter-intuitive: not only is Mitt Romney the lowest on the list, but almost all the other major Republican candidates are ahead of all the major Democratic candidates, John McCain being the exception — but he’s still ahead of Romney.

I may do more refined searches later. ..bruce..

Here’s a child after my own heart:

“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.

Boy, that’s gotta sting (this is in the New York Times). Hat tip to the omnipresent Glenn Reynolds and a chain of links from there.  ..bruce..

Most people (including many members of the LDS Church) are unaware that Joseph Smith ran for President in 1844, the year of his assassination. RonanJH over at By Common Consent has listed Smith’s Presidential platform, as set forth in a pamphlet distributed by LDS missionaries all over the young United States. Here are a few of them:

• “Petition, also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave states, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame. Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands, and from the deduction of pay from the members of Congress. Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor like other human beings; for ‘an hour of virtuous liberty on earth, is worth a whole eternity of bondage!’”

• “Abolish the practice in the army and navy of trying men by court martial for desertion; if a soldier or marine runs away, send him his wages, with this instruction, that his country will never trust him again; he has forfeited his honor. Make HONOR the standard with all men: be sure that good is rendered for evil in all cases; and the whole nation, like a kingdom of kings and priests, will rise up with righteousness; and be respected as wise and worthy on earth; and as just and holy for heaven; by Jehovah, the author of perfection.”

• “More economy in the national and state governments, would make less taxes among the people.”

You can read a scanned version of the original pamphlet here.  ..bruce..