Got Questions - Visit a Ward

[_3sheets2thewind]

This literally made me laugh out loud. Not the fake "lol" that we always type without really meaning it. I mean, a real guffaw. A veritable chortle. The LAST thing the church wants is to have reporters going to LDS meetings and reporting on what they see and hear. It would completely undermine everything the church is trying to accomplish with the I'm a Mormon campaign.

I think you are quite incorrect here. As I have read, the "I'm a Mormon" campaign lets the members ask and answer questions; which answers are largely left alone by the moderation if the answer is phrased as the individuals opinion.

Though an article from a reporter in HPG and wherein someone brings up Heavenly Mother, and another brings up Section 132 then suggests that God was a polygamist, would make for a very interesting media report.

[_malkie]

Love the confidence! I'm thrilled they are attempting this route, although results might not be entirely favorable (from an LDS perspective). I too used to believe that if people would just engage in an honest, average, first-hand experience with Mormonism, their perceptions of Mormonism would be at least favorable and respectful (and of course it would eventually result in mass baptism). That was back before I understood anything about patriarchy, science, history, archaeology, sociology, or logic. That was before I understood that feelings aren't an infallible guide to special kind of knowledge of the supernatural, and that 'I know the gospel/this church is true' doesn't actually make sense.

This should be interesting (if anyone outside the church is even paying attention). I do hope curious parties would at least check out a F&T meeting.

This, of course, is why the "every member a missionary" program has been such an ongoing success.
[/snark]

I agree that every ward probably has a number of close-to-perfect members who would give a very good impression of the church. However, in my experience, there's a lot of members who are far enough from the ideal that a reporter who conducted several interviews across a ward would likely conclude that they are mostly just regular, good people in a religion that, is for the most part, unremarkable and no more convincing than any other, and that they have their share of quite strange individuals with unusual ideas.

Perhaps that's what the PR department wants: to continue with the "nothing special about us" theme. If so, they might succeed.

I think it would depend largely an how well the reporter prepared for the interview. If they asked about any of the controversial issues they might get the feeling that the members are quite ignorant of their own history.

[_angsty]

I don't know. I'd be highly entertained to see someone unfamiliar with Mormon meetings write about it. I wonder if they'd notice how unbelievably boring Mormon meetings typically are. The only highlights are the goofy things people say from time to time. That is about the extent of the entertainment there.

and if it was a white congregation, how awful the singing is.

Heh heh. My rm mother took her member-missionary duties very seriously. It seemed like there was always someone she was introducing to the church. At one time, she had a friend taking the discussions and when it came time to think about baptism, the friend declined and decided to check out other churches. Her given reason was that she found the musical aspect of LDS meetings to be unacceptably lacking. Of course, it couldn't have been just that, the confused missionaries reasoned-- the antis must have gotten to her.

In hindsight, the lack of compelling music culture might very well have been the deciding factor. It might have also been the easiest aspect to identify among a number of deficiencies in the experience.