But I think there are many hurdles to this idea–principally because even those writing about Mormon literature don’t really know much of the literature. We talk about a few major titles, and ignore all the rest, without even any real assessment of what value they may have.

For most of the potential audience for Mormon Literature, the lack of knowledge of what has been written is accompanied by a lack of any need or desire for that literature. It simply doesn’t have much of a place in their lives.

Writing criticism, or even merely description, may, as Scott and others suggest, popularize Mormon Literature. But I don’t think this is the only approach that we can use. It would also be helpful if we used Mormon Literature in more pedestrian ways. Why not chose a Mormon poem to illustrate an idea or recognize an event? Why not use a Mormon short story to help a Sunday School lesson or expound doctrine in a talk? Mormon Literature needs to be a vital part of our everyday Mormon culture, just like Shakespeare or Keats or Twain inform our national and English-language culture.

Unfortunately, the barrier is still knowledge. Its hard to use poems, stories, novels, etc. that you don’t know about.

Still, we have to start somewhere. So, I’ll give it a try and, to recognize the holiday, post a Mormon poem:

Thanksgiving Day

With choicest meats and rarest fruits, with puddings cakes and pies,
With vegetables, and cereals the best the fields afford,
With all that mother nature from her generous store supplies,
I laden come to greet you, and provide your waiting board.

Come, gather round, both old and young, your bounteous meal partake,
And for these gifts your hearts lift up in humble, grateful prayer,
For man may plow and plant and reap, but God the increase gives,
Then thank Him for His wondrous grace, His ever watchful care.

For home and kindred, health and strength, for freedom’s blessed boon,
For waving trees and rippling streams, for birds and grass and flowers,
For sunshine, rain, refreshing breeze, and winter’s bracing air;
Oh, how the wealth of God’s great love fills all life’s passing hours!

Thank Him that we have work to do, and do it with a will,
For idle brain, or idle hands ne’er yield the heart content,
May we so live that in return for all these mercies given,
Our time, our talents and our strength be in His service spent.

Exit.

[Published in the Young Woman's Journal, v6 n4 p164; January 1895.]

This was the earliest poem I’ve found so far that talks about Thanksgiving Day (not that I’ve searched very hard). Its not the only one. Ardis Parshall at Keepapitchinin has posted many more recent Thanksgiving items over the past few years. She is doing exactly what I’m suggesting — finding and using Mormon material again. Not all of it is great, but the issue really isn’t whether or not its great. The issue is whether or not it is culturally relevant; whether it speaks to us today. I don’t know if the above poem does. Perhaps by posting it here we can try it out and see.

Let me start by admitting that I pretty much hated this book. Let’s just get it out there so we won’t have to keep talking about it. I hated the flat characters, the adrenaline-pimping pacing, the absurd science, the conspiracy theories within conspiracy theories, the Illuminati/Cobra badguys, the kitchen-sink idea inclusiveness, the audience pandering, the prestidigitational narrative breaks, the wowza-zowza phrasing —

I could go on.

Anyway. In addition to the usual suspects (Thomas Jefferson, painters, corrupt military, secret societies, ancient families, villains with broken bodies as well as souls), this book also features Mormons.

I came across the book in question, The Devil Colony (2011) by James Rollins (part of his bestselling Sigma Force series), via recommendation from a friend. It’s actually the second Sigma Force novel he’s recommended to me. I never got around to reading the first, but this one he really sold me:

It blends Native American lore, history from the founding fathers (focus on Thomas Jefferson), and Mormonism in a thrilling international adventure. What’s really interesting is the author isn’t LDS, and it’s cool to see how he spins it in.

I immediately put the book on hold and waited my turn. When it came, I started at the beginning and read the Acknowledgments, Notes from the Historical Record, and Notes from the Scientific Record. After reading those, I had to put the book down for a few hours before I could bear to pick it up again. The Acknowledgments were basically a list of informed people whose suggestions he intends to ignore. The Notes from the Historical Record lists some facts, with holes ( to be filled later with “facts”). And Notes from the Scientific Record reminded me of my nanowizard friend Tom Lowery’s disgust with Michael Crichton’s Prey.

At this point, even without beginning the actual novel, I was predisposed to hate it. Instead of engaging me with characters or situations, he was saying Shocking Things About the Real World! with the promise of fictional resolutions. This is not the sort of gimmick I appreciate.

Now, I should pull back and admit that, since these books are bestsellers, and because they were recommended to me by one of the best friends I’ve ever had*, that many people less snobby than me must really like them. And I admit that if this collection of ideas had been better written, I might have liked them too. However, I did not. And thus I won’t be worrying much about spoiler alerts or anything else from here on out. Consider yourself warned.

* (The funny thing is that it might be his fault I didn’t like The Devil Colony. Back in high school, I was gaga over The Millennium File by Glenn L. Anderson, a book that shares many surface traits with The Devil Colony: cutting-edge science rendered wrongly, Mormons, mastodons, the Lost Tribes of Israel, painfully obvious plot. My friend pointed out all the books faults and I felt suitably ashamed. And now here we are, fifteen years later. And I think his beloved book is stupid. . . . Suddenly I wonder if I’m hating it out of some weird need for revenge. . . .)

Here’s the background you need in order to understand this novel’s use of Mormon elements:

• The U.S. government has a group of super secret scientist spy scholars called SIGMA FORCE!
• An ancient group of families called the Guild — “the secret within all secret societies” (445) — bent on world domination (or something) makes life hard for our heroes.
• Even Thomas Jefferson had to deal with those Guild people.

That should cover it.

The book begins with a couple teenagers in Utah who discover a cave filled with gold plates. And an ancient nanotechnology that has the potential to destroy the world. Unless first destroyed by volcanoes. You know. Normal Utah stuff.

But gold plates! Sounds interesting! (Though any Mormon tempted to believe in Rollins’s descriptions of American history and nanotech will be given pause by the fact that the Golden Plates these gold plates were inspired by were translated by a gent named John Smith.)

Not that I think a silly thriller like this requires an army of fact-checkers, but after a million discussions over The Da Vinci Code, I’m a little leery about being known through a popular throwaway novel. Because let’s face it — Mormons are awesome material for conspiracy-theory thrillers. Don’t you think? Mysterious history! Missing artifacts! Colorful characters! Secret/sacred spaces! Things impossible to prove wrong! Things possible to prove wrong that are really juicy anyway! The only miracle is that books like this don’t become bestsellers every year.

With all my negativity, I suppose you’re expecting me to now come down on Rollins for his terrible depictions of Mormons.

Wrong!

Actually, I thought, given the standard set by his takes on everything else, he did an excellent job.

First, Mormons aren’t just shadowy figures in the background. One of the main characters (this volume only) is a Mormon. A Mormon and a Shoshone. And he’s one of the better developed characters (which, granted, isn’t saying much), and probably the most inherently interesting. Besides being a dem Marmin and a dem Injin, he’s a historian, naturalist, old fellow, has a dog, chews cigars (a leftover habit from his wild days), a respected if controversial figure in the Native American community, and pretty nimble, all things considered. Hank Kanosh, of course, is who first recognizes that Indian mummies with red and blond hair buried with gold plates might find some explanation in Mormon lore. And when their writing is a sort of protoHebraic? Well.

Naturally, Sigma Force’s resident Indian finds the idea of his people being Israelites unlikely and Hank agrees, suggesting ways to reconcile the story to the science that we’ve all heard and pondered ourselves (198-199). The most compelling evidence arrives when our heroes and villains, forced to work together in a race against time!, come to Yellowstone and discover a gold copy of Solomon’s Temple in a cave. (It may not surprise you to hear that Rollins wrote one of the novelizations for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.)

Sadly, the ancient nanoweaponry yet again destroys all the mummies and the temple and the scores of gold plates and everything else. Save one plate.

And then, in the most delightfully Mormon passage in the book, Hank takes that plate to the Salt Lake temple, having fasted and prayed, where he is admitted to “the threshold of this temple’s Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of the Holies’ chamber at the heart of the Mormon temple” (468). Frankly, without reading the rest of the book, this scene might not pay off as well, but I have to say that I thought it was pretty terrific. Best two pages in the book. Most interesting, most daring, most surprising. In part, probably, because it is so understated. And in part because Rollins could enjoy the mystery for mystery’s sake, as the Mormons ain’t coming back in the next book.

In the end, although I’m not convinced Rollins is a very careful researcher and although I find his writing nearly unreadable (believe me — I’ve listed not a hundredth part of this book’s sins), I still want to give him props.

The Devil Colony accomplishes the following:

• Engages with Mormon story in a new and compelling way.
• Does so in a way that is integral to the plot.
• Does it seriously, without being dismissive or mocking.
• Provides a Mormon hero.
• One that doesn’t look or sound like Mitt Romney!
• Does all this before a national audience.
• And does it in a way that people — lots of people — really like.

So although I basically hated this book and could never in good conscious recommend it to you, pretty cool, right?

Assimilation and youth

I wrote: “Mormon culture is our best chance to save our youth. Assimilation has taken its toll and will only get worse and those things that made it easy to assimilate become less effective.”

It’s no secret that the LDS Church is experiencing a crisis of inactivity when it comes to our youth. It’s not unique to our church. It may not be as bad in our church, but it is a problem, and part of the reason that it’s a problem is that we have so successfully assimilated into American culture — it’s easy to slide away from Mormonism into the culture at large. Let go of just a couple of practices and you can easily pass. But, paradoxically perhaps, we are also reaching a period in our history where the post WWII assimilation that has been so successful is under increasing pressure because of changing social and economic conditions.

Whether or not culture is of use in addressing this issue is up for debate. I for one think that it is so it is with that assumption that I proceed with the rest of this post.

Literary respectability

I wrote: “Those who lust after the fleshpots of American culture; who yearn for literary respectability; who dismiss native materials do so at their own peril and especially at the peril of the youth they are charged with educating.”

Look, I understand the appeal of literary respectiblity. I understand the provincial’s ashamed-ness of their roots. I understand snobbery and elitism. I really do. I also know that chasing respectability is a sucker’s game. It’s how the powers that be (innocuous and nice as they may be) gentrify and co-opt the foreign and the weird.

And I am convinced that dismissing native culture and attempting to cosmopolitanize our youth is a recipe for disaster. Now, of course, education is a process of opening avenues and experiencing the world and other cultures. And, of course, there can be an ugliness to provinciality. But that process can be an additive one — one that isn’t dismissive of what the student brings to the feast. That’s what I experienced at Berkeley, which because of its emphasis on a truly democratic meritocratic-ness and the almost pathologic commitment to diversity and cultural sensitivity never made me feel weird or bad to be a Mormon, and, in fact, equipped me with the tools of the ethnic, the hybrid, the emerging, the marginal.

Is the Church enough?

I wrote: “We think that the Church is enough. But the Church can only go so far in its modern form because of the strictures of late capitalism and modern democracy. There is still a need for culture that exist around and among and aside from the faith as is.”

Many assimilated American Mormons live bifurcated lives. Not in the sense that they are Sunday-only religionists. Or that they hide their faith from others. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, when it comes to culture, they consume church-sanctioned culture, and they consume American culture. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. It works for some people. But there is a danger there, a danger when the culture and the Church collide and Mormons, especially Mormon youth, think that a) they have to decide between the two or b) that the official discourse and praxis is all there is when it comes to their Mormon identity and yet feel something missing.

We weren’t always like this. We didn’t always live like this. But this is where assimilation has brought us. For all that it is the kingdom of God on earth, the Church operates within the constraints of our socio-political situation as well as within the boundaries of its own bureaucracy and official discourse. As I have said in the past, unlike many other culture-makers, I have no problem with this. I even think that the Church does quite well within its constraints. But I see signs (both in myself and others) that that isn’t enough. There are cultural gaps that the Church can’t (and probably shouldn’t, at least not in our current society) fill. Yes, there are those for whom what the Church provides is enough. And they have their hobbies and cultural consumption that’s separate, and it all works fine together. Not all of us are like that, and I worry that especially our youth aren’t making it work. The Church is enough to provide exaltation, but culture can help make that process work better and work for more people when friction arises. Culture can help us understand others who struggle. Culture can help us with our own struggles, offering ways to vent off steam or approach things differently or renew our engagement with the official.

Retreat into isolationism

I wrote: “The retreating into isolationism only works in a few cases and a few locations (and I would argue never truly works).”

In the face of what I’ve written in the sections above, it’s tempting to deploy isolationism as a strategy. That never works, and it especially doesn’t work in a networked world. As I’ve written before: things that are forbidden often become quite attractive, especially for youth.  In addition, isolationism always unnecessarily constricts the boundaries so that those with individual interests think that they are partially on the outside of their culture so why not just go all the way out? Rather we need to draw the circle around them (mostly around them — some stuff does need to get left out in the cold).

This is to not to say that we don’t do what we can to mitigate exposure to certain things or that we don’t create boundaries to what media we consume. We definitely should and do. But the world always intrudes. Our youth need to be equipped to deal with such intrusions.

Orthopraxis, cultural pride/expression

I wrote: “The only viable road to safety is to yoke orthopraxis with cultural pride and expression and create an engine with which to enact acts of piracy and subterfuge and illusion against the culture. Outmaneuver the co-opters; make foolish the naysayers; jujitsu the haters; lure the curious; forge bonds with the friendly.”

Monsters & Mormons is just an anthology of Mormon-themed genre stories, and I would definitely not have wanted submitters to attempt to intentionally accomplish the theoretical foundation for it. But is it also an attempt to do what I describe in that tortured engine metaphor? You betcha.

This is not easy to do. And I couch the enterprise in language that is not entirely comfortable for modern day latter-day saints (for more on that, see the radical entry in my radical middle series). But after more than a decade in the business of thinking about, reading about and discussing Mormon culture, this is where I have arrived. And I’m not talking about some shallow use of Mormon materials to exotify ones cred with the broader culture (especially the elite literary culture). I’m talking about working in tandem with orthopraxis — the living of our religion; the practice of it within our institution — to create products, and perhaps more importantly to create role models, viable alternatives that provide diverse but faithful ways of being Mormon. Look, if the Church can employ a PR agency to enlist Brandon Flowers to appear in a YouTube video, surely, we can do something just as cool and resonant (or even more so).

In fact, I just realized that the LDS Church has outflanked me: I’ve been mulling about how to use cultural and modern storytelling to create a sense of Mormon pride and to showcase Mormon creativity. Duh. That’s exactly what the I am a Mormon campaign is trying to do. Of course, watching a bunch of I am a Mormon commercials isn’t quite the cultural experience of reading a novel, viewing a film, playing through a videogame. And the Church can only engage in so much jujitsu and subterfuge (see the section above about constraints). That’s where we come in.

In short:

The summary isn’t anything groundbreaking but hopefully how we’ve arrived here is new or at least useful: culture is an important aspect to Mormon identity. Assimilation has been both a boon and a curse. Moving forward, our young people will need to be able to consume and create via Mormonism rather than apart from it. This will help them continue along the path of dedicated orthopraxy because they will feel more whole as individuated but connected Mormons. That’s why culture is important to the future of Mormonism.

1. This references two podcast episodes that contain content some AMV readers may be uncomfortable with: Sex. Language. Irreverence. Transsexuality. etc.

2. I am an assimilated American (although not fully). It’s likely you are too. But if you aren’t, this post isn’t for you.

Today I listened to the episode Marc Maron’s WTF comedy podcast that was posted this past Monday, a live episode recorded at The Bell House in Brooklyn. After doing his opening bit, Marc Maron brought out Ira Glass and they talked for awhile (about Ira getting drunk, actually) and then (at around the 40-minute mark; and again: content warning) they bring out Elna Baker who reveals that she is no longer a practicing Mormon and talks about why that is and what she has done (as in, you know, “rule” breaking stuff) since making that decision. It’s about what you would expect if you know anything about the three personalities involved. And I say that with fondness.

There is, however, an uneasiness there. Elna isn’t quite sure how to express things; Maron* and Ira Glass** go for the obvious jokes and show major unfamiliarity with Mormonism while still making comments and jokes as if they know what it’s all about. Once again the tropes come out — Mormons as the weird, the repressed, the naive, the stiff (and Elna certainly abets that. Water vault? Really? [on the other hand, I kinda think water vault is a cool concept -- all those sins, proxy and otherwise, locked away in that water]), the other. Funny underwear***. Mitt Romney. Blah, blah, blah.

And while I’m tired of the totalizing tropes, I still found it somewhat fascinating. They really don’t know what to do with us. And, oh, I suppose I should be outraged about it, but perhaps being an assimilated American means that you can find a joke about baptisms for the dead being equivalent to necrophilia funny while at the same time feeling sorrow over the fact that so many outsiders can’t comprehend the beauty and brilliance of the practice. And I don’t mean to condescend****, but I can’t help feel some smugness over the fact that as an assimilated American I get to immerse myself in all these cultural products and enjoy them and even feel part of them (even if the assimliation is never fully realized — there always will be that unease) while at the same time having this whole other thing that’s mine.

Earlier in the week I caught up with the Writing Excuses episodes, including episode 6.1 which involved a discussion with female-to-male transsexual writer Keffy Kerhli on gender roles and identity. It was a fascinating episode. And yet there was some slight awkwardness from Brandon Sanderson, especially in comparison to Mary Robinette Kowal. Look, major props to him for being open to doing an episode on the topic, but there were a couple of moments that showed some (very small) unease. On the other hand, Howard Tayler was totally not-awkward and expressed himself amazingly well in the comments section when, as was inevitable, the self-righteous (actually apparently non-LDS) Christian showed up.

Now we’ve said favorable things about both Elna and Brandon around here. In fact, it’s safe to say that some of us AMVers are major fans. And I don’t think that just because Elna leaves, that changes whatever achievement her book is. And I don’t think that Brandon being oh-so-slightly awkward changes the fact that just covering the topic on a podcast that has a huge mainstream Mormon audience is an achievement worth noting.

Both podcast episodes show evidence of the assimilation of Mormonism (and Mormons) into American culture. Both also show the uneasiness inherent in that assimilaton.

I was running errands (library, pharmacy, grocery) earlier this evening thinking about all this — these evidences of uneasy assimilation — while listening to the Current and after the whiny girl singing about love there was a pause, as I pulled out of the library parking structure, and then that familiar sharp chord (I knew it from the first note), and I turned the radio way up and there it all was — the crisp snap of Stephen’s drums; the melodic boom of Hooky’s bass; the piercing soaring of Bernard’s keyboard; the jangling of Ian’s guitar and his aching, baritone crooning — and I turned it up even more because if any cultural product put me into whatever tracks of assimilation I have wandered down it was this track. And as the chorus hit — the part where normally I’d sing along that love, love will tear us apart again — I was quiet because I just wanted to take it all in. And, you know, there was no unease. None at all. Still. After all these years. None. And beneath the rush of emotion, the rawness that still gets me every time, all was quiet. And when the last notes faded away (don’t ever fade away), I turned off the radio and, there in the grocery store parking lot, felt an odd gratitude. Because I know that whatever unease there may be between us and them (and us and us), I’m grateful to believe in something and be part of something that encompasses all of it. Which it does. And I say that without smugness or self-satisfaction. It doesn’t change the awkwardness here. But all of it is all part of this mortal life. And it’s also all part of the eternal.

NOTE: so it should be obvious, but let’s keep the comments focused on notions of assimilation and Mormonism and culture. I don’t want to hear about how you feel about Elna Baker or Brandon Sanderson or Marc Maron. Or how you feel about Brooklyn hipsters, conservative Mormons, stand-up comics, transsexuals, or fantasy writers. Let’s get past the obvious outrage or disappointment or whatever. That’s just as predictable as the unease.

*Yep. Maron. I figure after listening to more than 140 episodes of the podcast, I get to do that.

**Coincidentally Laura referred to Ira Glass in a post earlier today. Sorry, Laura.

***For the record Elna isn’t entirely wrong about what she says about women and garments, but she isn’t fully right either.

****That’s a Maronism, btw.

I’m not sure that we should be trumpeting that “accomplishment”—creating a work that annoys people isn’t nearly as important as creating a work that is popular, although the two do tend to go hand in hand to a degree. If your book is popular, then its more likely that a few people will think that others need to be protected from your book.

Mormon culture has a tenuous relationship with the concept of censorship and restrictions on books. Almost from the beginning our General Authorities and other leaders have urged us to use caution when choosing what we read and the other entertainment we consume. The issues about what literature is “appropriate” have been the subject of many, many discussions, especially online, in which one side claims some book should not be read, and the other side claims that it should. And books have (so far) been spared the fate of film, which some parts of Mormon Culture have decided must be edited to make it acceptable. The issues are complicated, and I don’t want to re-hash them here or lead anyone to assume that I am overly permissive with what I read. Lets not go there.

What we have to remember is that banned books is NOT about whether or not to read trash. It IS about who gets to tell you what you can read and what you can not. Its one thing to follow the counsel not to see R-rated films, and another to say that others should not be able to see such a film or that the film should not be made. Its one thing to tell your children they can’t read Harry Potter, and another to insist that it not be available in the school library.

Our own LDS culture seems to have a tendency to try to control reading this way. The major LDS bookstore chains limit what they carry to what is “appropriate” (that annoyingly undefined, “I know it when I read it” rule that seems almost universal), and while I certainly think they have a right to restrict what they sell, I have to wonder how much of the motivation is about business and how much is about the kind of enforcement that borders on unrighteous dominion. Fortunately, there are alternatives for distribution, so the impact of these restrictions is significantly mitigated.

Likely, some Mormon parents are among those who call for books to be removed from libraries, schools, etc. I assume they see an evil and feel compelled to act. And I admit that I likely have my limits also. I’m fairly sure I would object to a high school library having a subscription to Playboy. There do have to be limits. But it seems to me that how a community sets those limits is a very important issue. Surely we can find a better way to make decisions than how many parents or customers complain or even what a librarian or bookstore employee understands about a book.

We are fortunate to live at a time when the amount of information about books is increasing, which makes individual choice easier (although the rapidly increasing number of books published means lesser known works don’t have as much information). In today’s environment are stricter limits as necessary as they may have been? Isn’t the better option to put the book on the shelf (virtual or otherwise) and make available as much information about the book as is practical?

I certainly don’t have a clear answer to what limits should be placed and when, but my preference is to err on the side of making things available, with good information for parents and readers to make choices. More than ever we must remember that books also represent our point of view—one that could be seen as something to be protected from. If Harry Potter is challenged, how easy is it to use the same logic to challenge Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight books (which made the top 10 in 2009 and 2010) or The Book of Mormon?

Yesterday, to my dismay, I learned of an attempt by a Mormon parent to get a book removed from a middle school class reading list because of its attitude towards Mormons. The book? A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle.

That the first Sherlock Holmes mystery is quite bigoted against Mormons and very misinformed about Mormon beliefs and practices is nothing new. Most laughably, the book is the source of the story that “kidnapped” girls taken to Utah by nefarious Mormon Elders escaped the Salt Lake Temple by jumping from its walls into the Great Salt Lake—a story that I’ve encountered, unattributed and reported today as fact, in Brazilian publications!

What is new (at least as far as I know) is the attempt to get the book removed from a reading list. My first reaction is one of embarrassment—that a Mormon thinks this is a good idea. [I should note that this might not be considered censorship—students can still get the book from the school and local libraries—its just not on the list of works recommended for the school year. However, the ALA's definition of  "banned books" includes "an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others," which clearly applies in this case. The definition allows parents to restrict their own children's access, but not the access of others.]

Setting aside the implications that might be made from this proposal (that middle school children should not face the bigotry in well-known literary works, or that the best way to confront bigotry is to pretend it isn’t there) and the fact that several other works on the school’s list that could also be challenged for various reasons, I still find two significant problems in attempting to remove A Study in Scarlet from a reading list. First, try as I might, I can’t see how this move could possibly improve the understanding of children, Mormon or not, about Mormonism. And second, I suspect that the move will only come across as unnecessarily defensive or sensitive.

The only thing that removing a book from a reading list can possibly accomplish is to maintain ignorance. If you don’t read a book, you don’t know what it says (at least not without someone telling you). And if you don’t know what a book says, you can’t judge whether or not what it says is accurate or of value. Moreover, not reading A Study in Scarlet doesn’t remove its bias or the bias found in and transmitted by many other works (Zane Grey, anyone?). If the book is banned, no education happens, and we, Mormons aren’t any better off.

Then, when the news gets out that Mormons initiated banning the book, how will we appear? Its not like A Study in Scarlet is a new and controversial book. Likely tens of thousands read it each year, regardless of what this school system does. Isn’t the most likely reaction to Mormons banning the book one of incredulity? Its like banning Harry Potter because it talks of witchcraft—its had to see that any rational and intelligent person would take it as fact. Won’t banning this book make Mormons look reactionary? Like we can’t fight-off or explain inaccurate attacks from a nearly 125 year old book?

I do understand the desire to defend our religion and correct the misunderstandings (and outright falsehoods) in books, music, film, journalism, and even in blog posts. I also indulge in trying to explain the Mormon point of view and correct error. But I also recognize that if those errors were kept in the author’s brain and never written, neither the author nor his audience would have the corrections and viewpoints expressed to them. Their bigotry would never be confronted.

What is, I think, most productive to discuss in all this is what reactions should be made, and how should they be made. A Study in Scarlet has been in print since 1887. It remains popular, and I think it is unlikely that it will ever disappear. And there are, of course, other famous works that perpetuate misunderstandings of Mormonism. Jules Verne, Zane Grey and others have all included Mormonism in their works.

In other cases of bigotry, texts and other works that exploited the bigotry have largely fallen out of favor. Works like Little Black Sambo, Amos and Andy, Song of the South and others are read much less frequently than they once were. Is this what we should aim for? Of course the analogy with portrayals of those of African heritage doesn’t fit exactly, so perhaps not.

Instead should we aim for explaining the errors? Should we be working hard to help the broader culture come to the understanding that this is bigotry? Or should we take the kind of hands-off approach seen in the reaction to the recent Broadway musical The Book of Mormon? Should we let others discover the bigotry (as one non-Mormon did, comparing The Book of Mormon to Amos and Andy)?

I’m not sure what the approach should be. I look forward to your comments. But, I am certain that the best path doesn’t lie in limiting access to works because of their portrayal of Mormonism.

I realized the other day when I heard the last five minutes of Terry Gross’s interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone about their musical The Book of Mormon that for all the times I’ve listened to Fresh Air, for all the interviews about Big Love and Angels in America and such, the closest she’s come to interviewing an actual Mormon is Warren Jeffs’s nephew or Dustin Lance Black. Now, I’m not saying a Mormon should be interviewed just by virtue of being Mormon or that anything is owed us, but when that point was raised to me I was able to generate a list of worthy names off the top of my head, but regardless of how worthy these folk are—are they Terry’s taste? I’m not sure they are.

But I got to thinking about it, and for all Ms Gross’s openmindedness on putting together shows about Mormons and evangelists and Muslims and big African cats, she does not do shows on those topics in which an actual Mormon or evangelist or Muslim or lion is interviewed.

I mention lions because, apparently, Mormons et al are about the same as lions. An interesting subject for art and journalism but ultimately too alien to speak with directly. And, you know, when a lion-penned novel hits the bestseller lists, we might interview a critic about the book’s success, but not the actual lion about his book.

I don’t know. Too cynical?

When I was in Brazil last month I asked local members about the exhibit, but I only found one who remembered the event: an artist who was involved in organizing the event. No one else remembered.

As I understand it, after the show those works of art were returned to the artists, who were located all over Brazil, and over time the works, their creators and the exposition were forgotten. The Church in Brazil has grown substantially since then, it now has more than eight times as many members as it did then—so because of the growth, if not because they forgot, most members know nothing of the exhibition. As far as I can tell, the event was not  repeated, no catalog was made, and the public affairs records are the only remaining indication that the exhibit happened.

I don’t think that the ephemeral nature of this event is unusual. I’m sure similar events, likewise forgotten, have happened in many areas—local members have heard the counsel of General Authorities and local leaders to “be anxiously engaged in a good cause,” and “bring to pass much righteousness.” When these local members are artists of some type, they write and practice music and perform in concerts, they create works of art and mount expositions, and they write poetry and fiction and create books. But the projects they produce do not amount to more than a single event or provide much lasting benefit, and are soon forgotten.

The Church itself does better than its individual members, the cultural organizations they form or even local LDS congregations. The Church has established a museum, a library and theaters. It has established a choir and an orchestra. And it pays salaries for support staffs for these institutions. It sponsors multiple annual pageants. It sponsors ongoing contests and events, purchases art and promotes performances. [FWIW, the 9th International Art Competition is now accepting entries.] It has even translated plays and other materials into other languages and sponsored events in many locations around the world. The Church now sponsors cultural exhibitions as part of the events surrounding each Temple dedication. All things considered, the Church’s support of the arts is really quite remarkable.

Still, this support has its limits, and the Church’s ultimate purpose is not support the long-term development of the arts per se—the arts are simply a means to an end. While many Church-sponsored events and institutions are on-going, local events and even many events planned in Salt Lake, such as the cultural exhibitions associated with Temple dedications, have little or no long-term impact. They are remembered by the participants and some attendees, but don’t include momentos, or anything that might maintain a lasting impact.

I don’t want to suggest that every cultural event or activity must have a long-term impact. That is not realistic, nor is it even what most LDS Church members, or even the participants in cultural events, want. But when the arts we do have are so connected to the LDS Church, so dominated by the culture of the Wasatch front, and so influenced by one institutional style, providing more cultural materials and increasing their impact and longevity can only improve the role and diversity of culture among Mormons.

Lest this be somehow misunderstood, let me make it clear. I am not suggesting that the LDS Church isn’t doing enough or isn’t supportive enough. I think the Church’s support goes beyond what might be expected.

But Church members are often involved in putting together these events, be they independent of the Church, put on by local units, or sponsored by the Church itself. I’d like to see these members broaden their views, and work with the long term in mind. The arts can have a significant impact, when we make the cultural events we plan have lasting impact, beyond the memories of the participants.

I have been teaching about Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” in my high school creative writing class and so it has set me back on this track of thinking which has been boring its way into my everyday unconscious for a long time now. For those unaware of what exactly “The Hero’s Journey” is, it chiefly comes from a book Joseph Campbell wrote called The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Written in 1949, it was a very important book that set forth the idea that there are patterns and archetypes found in all sorts of disparate mythology, fairy tales, religious narratives, and folk lore. That all these stories from unconnected and far flung cultures follow one basic story. It is also a trend that can be found in epic literature and film, which is uncannily and unconsciously present in everything from Homer’s The Odyssey to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And many writers now purposely craft their tales to follow this pattern, George Lucas’s Star Wars being one of the most famous examples.

BYU Experimental Theatre Company's production of _Prometheus Unbound_

I also purposely followed this pattern with my play Prometheus Unbound several years ago (and have addressed it less directly in other plays such as Swallow the Sun and my new work Manifest), much because the idea has fascinated me ever since I was taught it in my high school sophmore honors English class. Ms. Drummond mentioned Carl Jung’s revolutionary studies in the early and mid 20th century about archetypes (a simpler overview here) and the collective unconscious. In my terms, archetypes are repeating patterns that happen in mythology and other stories, in psychology, in dreams, and even (at least from what I’ve been able to observe) in many points in recorded, literal history (try applying this pattern to Joan of Arc, for example).

Carl Jung

If  Freud is the psychologist for the atheist, Carl Jung is the psychologist for the spiritual believer. Jung puts a lot of faith in religious or spiritual experiences, which rather than making one disturbed psychologically (as many psychologists would be apt to attribute), rather he believed that they made one more psychologically healthy. “Here we must ask,” Jung wrote in The Undiscovered Self, “Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God , and hence that will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving into the crowd?” To Jung, religious experiences, perhaps even “supernatural” experiences, fulfilled an innate need in the human subconscious and communicated something very important about the nature of man. Campbell draws a lot from these Jungian ideas of archetypes and universal consciousness in his concept of a “Hero’s Journey.” There is something in the human psyche (interesting that “psyche” translates to “soul”) that creates these spiritual patterns in our stories.

C.S. LEWIS AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

I dealt with many of these concepts in the play I wrote about C.S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity, Swallow the Sun. C.S. Lewis struggled with these re-occurring patterns he saw in his passionate reading of early world mythologies that he loved in his early life. Lewis loved Norse mythology, Greek mythology, the old stories which caused this difficult to define “joy” to spring up in him. However, this same pattern in the “dying god” myths who would have a kind of glorious resurrection (such as the Greek Prometheus, the Egyptian Osiris, or the Norse Baldr), he also saw in the story of Christ. This led him to believe that Christianity was no different than these other myths… Christianity may have had many things going for it, but originality was not one of them.

New Play Project's 2008 production of _Swallow the Sun_

This was a major stumbling block for Lewis and one of the causes of his fall from his childhood faith and his subsequent period as an atheist. It would be many years and many spiritual guides before his road led him back to a faith in some sort of deity, but eventually when he conceded to some sort of God, it wasn’t necessarily a Christian one at first. Again, there was that pesky pattern. Why was Christianity so similar to other myths? Was it simply spiritual plagiarism?

Fortunately for all we lovers of C.S. Lewis’s Christian fiction and apologetics, two important friends were attached to Lewis’s life. J.R.R. Tolkien (the yet to be author of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit) and Hugo Dyson (a University professor and an expert on Shakespeare). These two men were major causes of Lewis’s conversion to Christianity when the three friends and future Inklings took a long walk one night and discussed these major issues that were bothering Lewis. Tolkien and Dyson addressed this similarity between these narratives not by talking around them or ignoring them, but plainly accepting them as part of the religion. Christianity was the “true myth” they said. Christianity was the truth that all the other myths were pointing to.

I don’t know whether these three men were familiar with Carl Jung (although it’s not a shot in the dark that they may have, since their later commentary and work indicates that they were familiar with Jung’s associate Freud), but the line of reasoning they took at that point in C.S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity was very Jungian. Like Jung, their reasoning acknowledges that there is a kind of pre-existent memory, a “collected unconsciousness” that we all share in common. Whether it’s hard wired genetically, spiritually, or psychologically, the result is the same. Human beings inherently know the same story… when they create their stories, their myths, their movies, many of these components of that story tumble out unbidden, for it’s a natural impulse, it’s written on our bones, etched in our spirits, embedded in our psychology. And in this case, that story pointed to the reality of the Christ, the Savior Jesus. But it doesn’t stop there. It is also the story of Joseph Smith. And it doesn’t stop there either. It is the story of Buddha, and Jean d’Arc, and Abraham Lincoln. It is the story of so many people and so many places, so universal in its application that it can be called the Human Story.

In the next part of this essay, it is this story that I aim to tell. Or Re-Tell, for it’s been told many times in many places by many people, connected by nothing but a common humanity and a spiritual spark.

Kathryn Little and Amos Omer in New Play Project's Production of _The Fading Flower_. Photo by Naoma Wilkinson.

I have written two LDS History plays, one called Friends of God (about the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom) the other called The Fading Flower (about the conflict surrounding the LDS/ RLDS schism about polygamy, especially as it related to Joseph and Emma Smith’s family). I was criticized by some people for writing the plays (one family member even told me after seeing the play, that he thought I was going to go apostate). Some people thought that the plays brought up too many uncomfortable facts in Church history. They thought that presenting a less than ideal image of Church figures would be damaging to people’s faith. And, truth told, there are some people I know who struggled with both plays.
The irony, of course, is that I wrote the plays to build up faith rather than tear it down… I consider the plays to tell the faith of people who struggled, but were ultimately redeemed by those struggles, either in this life or the next. The plays clearly state God’s reality and love and show the Church’s leaders as inspired, although not perfect. I addressed hard questions, but I also believe I presented answers to those questions, if people were willing to put aside their prejudices and preconceptions. And that, more often than not, proved to be the case.

I had one actor who had gone inactive until he was in Friends of God and then decided to go on a full time mission as a result of being in the play and the Spirit he felt in being part of it. The plays opened up conversations with less active, former member, and non-member friends. I had numerous people come up to me (sometimes in tears) telling me how the play addressed issues they had been struggling with for a long time and that it had answered their prayers. I had people who came with thoughtful, faithful, spiritual experiences and we rejoiced together and were edified together. Both sets of casts, especially, felt spiritual uplift and a sense of mission with each play, even to the point where we had spiritual experiences in feeling presences and angels assisting and participating with us in our work. I won’t go into too much detail there, for its sacred ground for me, but I felt spiritual assistance in bringing those plays to their fulfillment. Again and again, I felt why the Lord had spurred me on in these projects.

However, there was one instance where I doubted myself on this front. The Fading Flower was accepted as part of BYU’s “Writers/Dramatugs/Actors Workshop,” which workshops new plays before producing a staged reading of the piece (I was excited about this since I wasn’t even a BYU student). The play, which deals with some pretty heavy historical realities, especially regarding the practice of polygamy in the 19th century by the LDS Church, hit a couple of the students pretty hard.

One of the students was a wonderful, intelligent, young woman and a feminist who strongly disliked my portrayal of Emma which, fortunately, we fixed to her satisfaction, for I have always been a strong proponent of Emma (I consider myself a kind of feminist myself, by the way). The practice of polygamy in any fashion was something that worked against this young woman’s feminist tendencies, so it was bound to be an uncomfortable topic for her, but she was smart, knowledgeable, and I wasn’t afraid that anything presented was going to take her out for good.

The experience of the other young woman was much harder for me to bear, though. She was a recent Hispanic convert of a couple of years, and had been taught a pretty simplistic version of the Gospel. She had sacrificed a lot, going against her family’s Catholic traditions and moving from Texas to go to BYU and be close to the Church. Her experiences at BYU ruffled her, as she confronted (at least from her perspective) intolerance, judgmentalism, and even some thinly veiled racism. Then there came this play of mine, presenting Joseph Smith as a polygamist (plus other hard facts), all information that she had never encountered before.

Her and I exchanged some long e-mails about the subject, and I did my best to give the context of the issues involved. A good friendship came out of it. However, some time later she later informed me that she had left the Church. She made it sound that it was due to a lot of the other issues she was specifically encountering in the weird culture that is BYU, but I had the feeling that my play certainly hadn’t helped.

I had written the play because of a vivid and prophetic dream I had that spurred me. I felt good throughout the process of writing it and when it was actually performed I, the cast, and many audience members told me the spiritual experiences they had surrounding it. But why then should I even write a play that could inadvertently damage some one’s fledgling faith?

I struggled with that question, but the more I thought and prayed about it, the more convinced I was performing the work the Lord had guided me in. There was a deeper problem at work here… we do not prepare the Saints for the information that is bound to fall in their laps.

It is not my fault that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I did not create that fact. If you believe him, not even Joseph Smith is at fault for that fact. He was doing as the Lord directed. Yet in the Church we often build up this veil of secrecy, of enforced ignorance. Many of us frown on those who would discuss the less than savory elements of the Gospel and its history.

And it doesn’t only extend to Church History. The Book of Mormon, the Old and New Testaments have own fair share of faith challenging stories. I read a talk once where Elder Jeffrey R. Holland commented on how it said something about the Lord that he put Laban’s death by the hand Nephi within the first eight pages of the Book of Mormon. God wasn’t going to coddle us, he wanted us to face the facts and realize that discipleship in His Kingdom had a price. I look at the graphic and often disturbing stories in the Standard Works and realize that religion– real religion that hasn’t been watered down– is often a hard lesson in the rough nature of truth.

My play The Fading Flower is based on my research about the family of Joseph Smith, years after his martyrdom, especially centering on Emma Smith and her youngest son David Hyrum Smith. Joseph’s widow Emma strived to protect her sons and daughter from the principles which had caused her so much pain in her personal life with Joseph… the principle of polygamy and the “Brighamites” who practiced it. I made a lot of this issue of Emma’s protectiveness. Emma did not want to expose her children to the things and people that had caused her so much struggle. Essentially she wanted to protect them from the truth.

This, in the end, is the cause for the grief and downfall of Emma’s family. It’s Emma’s tragic flaw, this unwillingness to confront the full truth. It’s particularly catastrophic to her youngest son David Hyrum Smith, who not only loses his faith when he confronts the truth about his father’s polygamy, but also loses his sanity and spends the rest of his days in an insane asylum. Near the end of the play, I have David’s adopted sister Julia say, “David did not lose his sanity because he was told the truth in the end. David lost his sanity because he was not told the truth from the beginning. If he hadn’t a false world constructed around him, he would have been able to endure the real one.”

I certainly believe that people still need to learn “line upon line, precept upon precept,” and that we should get “milk before meat.” But I’m saying it now, as I’ve said it before, our enemies are not going to be kind to us in this regard. In this age of easy information, they’re going to shove that meat down our throats and hope that we choke on it. And I have seen just that, time and time again. We’re still feeding the full fledged adults milk, and I’m nervous about the day when they meet some one who has information to give them (without the context) and that our friends and neighbors, and sibling and children, our spouses and parents, they’re going to choke and their faith is going to die.

We often really don’t trust the Lord when He said, “The Truth will make you free.” We take that as some kind of statement about general, esoteric truth, not really applying to the nitty gritty of history and theology and science and anthropology. Yet the Lord makes it painfully clear that if we take that evasive, luke warm track, we are deluding ourselves:

I give you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness….And, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen (Doctrine and Covenants 93: 19, 53).

To know “what you worship”… that’s a pretty big deal. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Yet these are not what many people of faith are being led to. They are told to cover up, not to seek too deep into the mysteries… yet Joseph Smith responds to this kind of reasoning with some unequivocal sayings:

The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 137).

That communion with God doesn’t come cheap, and it doesn’t come without some struggle. All the experience I have to base this on are my own, but I know that every experience with the Divine I have had has come like Jacob wrestling with the angel… the Lord tries me, tests me. He forces me into a corner, sometimes making me struggle with conflict, even doubt. But after that tempest, the lights emerge from the darkness and enlightenment comes.

I won’t lie. In writing the about hard questions in Mormon History, I have often had to shed my cherished cultural assumptions like snake sheds his outer skin. Underneath, however, I find scales of armor that have been tempered into a true strength and resilience. I know the history, I know the doctrine, I know the context. I’m no longer afraid.