A Latter-day Saint view of Book of Mormon musical

I have been reading Michael Otterson's column in the Washington Post
and loving it.  Michael is the head of Public Affairs for the Church.
The article below reflects his no nonsense approach in addressing
current Mormon issues, specifically in this article, the Broadway Hit,
The Book of Mormon Musical.

I thought you might enjoy the read.
Love you all.

A Latter-day Saint view of Book of Mormon musical

Reviews of “The Book of Mormon” musical have been all over the
entertainment media in the past few weeks. According to the reviews,
the play sketches the journey of two Mormon missionaries from their
sheltered life in Salt Lake City to Uganda, where their training and
life experience proves wholly inadequate to the realities of a
continent plagued by poverty, AIDS, genital mutilation and other
horrors. While extolling the musical for its originality, most
reviewers also make reference to the play’s over-the-top blasphemous
and offensive language.

Dealing with parody and satire is always a tricky thing for churches.
We can easily appear thin-skinned or defensive, and churches sometimes
are. A few members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
who have seen this musical and blogged about it seem to have gone out
of their way to show how they can take it. That’s their choice.
There’s always room for different perspectives, and we can all decide
what to do with our free time.

But I’m not buying what I’m reading in the reviews. Specifically, I’m
not willing to spend $200 for a ticket to be sold the idea that
religion moves along oblivious to real-world problems in a kind of
blissful naiveté.

Somewhere I read that the show’s creators spent seven years writing
and producing “The Book of Mormon” musical. As I reflected on all that
time spent parodying this particular target, I also wondered what was
really going on with Mormons in Africa during those same seven years.

So I checked.

•The World Health Organization estimates that 884 million people
worldwide don’t have access to clean water. This is a huge problem in
Africa, not only because of water-borne diseases but because kids who
spend hours each day walking to and from the nearest well to fill old
gasoline cans with water cannot attend school. According to church
records, in the past seven years, more than four million Africans in
17 countries have gained access to clean drinking water through Mormon
humanitarian efforts to sink or rehabilitate boreholes.
•More than 34,000 physically handicapped African kids now have
wheelchairs through the same Mormon-sponsored humanitarian program. To
see a legless child whose knuckles have become calloused through
walking on his hands lifted into a wheelchair may be the best way to
fully understand the liberation this brings.
•Millions of children, meanwhile, have now been vaccinated against
killer diseases like measles as the church has sponsored or assisted
with projects in 22 African countries.
•More than 126,000 Africans have had their sight restored or improved
through Mormon partnership with African eye care professionals in
providing training, equipment and supplies.
•Another 52,000 Africans have been trained to help newborns who
otherwise would never take a first breath. Training in neonatal
resuscitation has also been a big project for Mormons in Africa.
•Then, of course, there is the tragedy of AIDS. A couple of weeks ago
I attended a dinner where the Utah AIDS Foundation honored James O.
Mason, former United States Assistant Secretary of Health. When he was
working for the Center for Disease Control in 1984, a project to
research the epidemiology and treatment of AIDS was established at the
Hospital Mama Yempo in Kinshasha, Zaire. After visiting the hospital
and examining the children and adults with AIDS, Mason described the
death rate and the associated infections from AIDS as “horrific.”
Mason, a Mormon, knows quite a bit about AIDS and a great deal about
Africa.
•None of this includes responses to multiple disasters, like the
flooding in Niger, where the Church provided clothing, quits and
hygiene items to 20,000 people in six inundated regions of the
country.

Of course, parody isn’t reality, and it’s the very distortion that
makes it appealing and often funny. The danger is not when people
laugh but when they take it seriously – if they leave a theater
believing that Mormons really do live in some kind of a surreal world
of self-deception and illusion.

A couple of weeks ago a review about the musical appeared at the New
York Times from a Jewish writer who simply listed himself as Levi. “As
someone of Jewish faith,” he began, “I take personal offense at this
show….I cannot believe that New York, MY New York, where I was born
and raised, would ever do such a thing. Shame on you, New York Times,
shame on Broadway, and shame on all of us who stand idly by and do
nothing while the faith of others is mocked. Religious and cultural
Jews need not support such bigotry.”
Levi’s point was echoed by some reviewers, but by surprisingly few. So
why hasn’t there been a huge outcry from Mormons?
In my opinion, three reasons. The first is that in the great scheme of
things, what Broadway does with “The Book of Mormon” musical is
irrelevant to most of us. In the great sweep of history, parodies and
TV dramas are blips on the radar screen that come and go. Popular
culture will be whatever it will be.

The second reason is related. Jesus’s apostle Paul put it rather well
when he said that Christians seek out the positive and virtuous things
in life. His New Testament phraseology was adapted in the early years
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this formal
Article of Faith:
“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and
in doing good to all men…If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of
good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”
Finally, if we Mormons really do follow Jesus Christ in our lives and
look to him as an example, then it’s hard for us to ignore the
injunction to turn the other cheek. There were times, to be sure, when
Jesus roundly criticized others, but it was almost always for hardened
hypocrisy. He dismissed the criticism he received personally and told
his followers: “Do good to them who despitefully use you and persecute
you.”
It takes strength of character to do this, but it’s the Christian
mandate. Sure, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pushes
back when the record needs correcting or when legal rights need
defending, but the world of popular entertainment is more likely to be
met with a collective shrug than by placard-waving Mormon protesters.
Meanwhile, what of those thousands of remarkable and selfless Mormon
missionaries who opted to pay their own expenses during the past seven
years to serve in Africa while their peers were focused on careers or
getting on with life? They have returned home, bringing with them a
connection with the African people that will last a lifetime. Many
will keep up their Swahili language or their Igbo dialect. They will
keep in their bedrooms the flags of the nations where they served.
They will look up every time they hear Africa mentioned on the evening
news. Their associations with the people whose lives they touched will
become lifetime friendships. And in a hundred ways they will become
unofficial ambassadors for the nations they served.