Seeking Reactions to “The Mormons” (Helen Whitney/PBS Documentary) for December Issue
By John Dehlin on Oct 18, 2007
Friends of Sunstone,
We’re writing to ask for your assistance for the December Sunstone issue, which we hope to send to press just before Thanksgiving. In addition to Sunstone’s regular magazine features, for this December issue, we’re planning a cluster of pieces about the Helen Whitney PBS documentary, The Mormons, which aired 30 April/1 May. Helen has graciously agreed to let us publish her wonderful Smith-Pettit Lecture from this summer’s Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium in which she parts the veil, allowing us to peek inside her mind and learn about some of her adventures in making the film. We know our readers will really enjoy reading about all these things.
But we don’t want Helen’s lecture to stand alone in the magazine. Here is a list of other possibilities we’d also like to consider as companion pieces in the magazine itself or in the online supplementary material for this issue:
- Experiences of those who were interviewed for the documentary. What did the pre-filming experience involve? The experience of being interviewed on camera? Reactions received after the film aired? What was left on the cutting room floor that the interviewee wished had made it into the final version?
- Critical responses to the film, both positive and negative. We’d like to publish excerpts from the best reflections on the film already online or in print, as well as fresh pieces.
- Responses of non-Mormons to the film.
- Analyses/reflections on the additional and supporting materials for the film on the PBS website (e.g., introductions, historical maps, extended interview transcripts).
- How the film was talked about in LDS settings after it aired. We’d love to collect anecdotes or longer stories about ways it was mentioned from the pulpit or in Sunday classroom lessons.
How you can help:
- If we’ve missed something above, we’d appreciate your ideas for other things to include in this cluster.
- Do you have leads for people we can or should talk to in trying to gather the kinds of things discussed above?
- Will you provide us with links to the best blog and online discussions you encountered on this subject?
- Can you link or point us to where critics wrote about The Mormons in national publications, both secular and religious?
We’d love you to write your own responses to the film for possible inclusion in the magazine.
Thanks! Please write to us as soon as possible. Our ideal would be to hear from you with these ideas and leads within the next ten days. If you’d like to write something for potential publication, we’d, of course, be able to give you more time to finish the writing, but for planning purposes, we’d at least need to know what might be coming.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Dan Wotherspoon, editor, dan(at)sunstoneonline.com
John Dehlin, executive director, johndehlin(at)gmail.com
Helen Whitney’s PBS documentary The Mormons has ushered in a new era of Mormon glasnost.
It has answered my long-time lament of what is missing in the Utah Church. I did not think I’d live to witness it!
Glasnost is what revolutionized Soviet tyranny — with minimum bloodshed.
In discussing the similarities between the Soviet system and the Mormon Church with an evangelical friend in my dad’s hometown in Ukraine, he wrote:
As for glasnost’: - as soon as M. Gorbachyov [sic] kicked it off, the
Communism went down; as soon as you touched the issue in your Church -
you were out. Amazing similarity, isn’t it?
But the Mormon version is different from the Soviet version. That is because the Mormon version originated from grass roots members. Without independent associations like Dialogue and Sunstone, Helen Whitney would have had no leverage with the top cloistered leadership.
In contrast, the Soviet version originated at the top. Here’s how:
It began when, in 1985, Gorbachev, et al, made an accurate assessment of their economically crumbling society relative to the world situation. This was accelerated by the robust American economic engine. Gorbachev’s assessment was not biased by ideology, which he could do because he came from the intelligence community, whose job it was to gather the real facts. Never mind for now how they, the KGB, used those facts. Once they felt confident in their assessment, the new leadership examined the policies that needed change. That’s when the invention of perestroika originated. Perestroika (or restructuring) is a non-religious version of repentance. But, repentance was not possible without confession or openness — which is the meaning of glasnost!. Gorbachev and company had to introduce two new words into the Russian language that were not loaded with corrupt religious or socialist baggage.
So, now that a new era of Mormon glasnost has been launched, who knows where it will lead? I hope it will lead to the change of two outmoded policies: seniority and exclusivity.
Comment # 1 by Eugene Kovalenko | Oct 19, 2007 | Reply
The Mormon Church is a very pragmatic and efficient business, it will cooperate as long as the borders of the church are expanded by so doing. If this new openness doesn’t lead to more bums in pews, it will cease. Conservative Christian religions (businesses) are like sharks, they must feed on new flesh constantly. Gordon
Comment # 2 by Gordon Hill | Oct 20, 2007 | Reply
That is a far more cynical view than my own, Gordon. If I agreed with your assessment, I wouldn’t give the Church another thought. But I think it has far more to offer than the present hierarchy can even comprehend at present. I see a profound transformation in the making. Namaste, Eugene
Comment # 3 by Eugene Kovalenko | Oct 21, 2007 | Reply