That’s the title of this article by Diane Winston, a USC professor, on the Newport Beach, CA open house for the new temple. The article was more respectful than some. We certainly come off a lot better than the evangelicals protesting in front of the temple.
But then she compares the Celestial Room to a Marriott lobby. Oh brother.
At the end of the article she asks: “As for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I still have a few questions hanging. What is the nature and substance of Jesus? Is polygamy practiced in heaven? And where do you buy those cool white booties?” Anybody wanting to take a shot at answering can e-mail the author at dianewin@usc.edu.
“But then she compares the Celestial Room to a Marriott lobby. Oh brother.”
Why do you say “oh brother.” What does the Celestial room remind you of?
Here’s the whole quote:
Ed, agreed that the piece is mostly positive. But if you had seen some of the Marriott hotels I’ve seen…
Just one example: the Marriott in Rio de Janeiro was used as the local prostitute hangout when I lived there. The prostitutes would openly solicit you when you walked in. But again, agreed that she meant it in a positive way.
I guess the retort to the protestors might be: “Have a nice day. It’s costing you and your faith (Evangelical Christianity) a good reputation.” It’s no wonder the media has such a poor view of Evangelicals when what media types often see is people like the Christian protestors that hang out in front of LDS temples and abortion clinics. Strange bedfellows.
The Newport Beach temple is about 20 minutes away from where I live. My teenagers are involved in a huge youth temple celebration–they’ll be performing dance routines for a large audience (some kind of stadium, I believe), including the Prophet. We’re going to the open house on Friday. My daughter’s already done “bootie duty” there (helping people cover their shoes before their tours).
I have photos of the temple when it was under construction, I posted some on my old blog here. (Just be aware it’s my old blog and I shut off the ability to comment because of all the spam it was getting.)
I am so glad she was talking about shoe booties.
Heh, I remember that growing up non-Mormon in Utah, I was convinced that the Salt Lake Temple’s interior looked like the Temple of Doom: stone floors, torches on the walls, the sounds of chains rattling and random screams punctuating the air.
I was so disappointed (but relieved) when I finally saw some pictures of the interior once I started investigating the Church. And yes, my first comment on seeing a picture of the Celestial Room was, “Say, it looks like a hotel!”
Besides, the CR is kind of symbolic of the lobby outside God’s office, if you think about it… 🙂
Thanks for the link, Susan M. I also live near the NB temple — about 6 miles to the east, in fact.
The interior is simply beautiful. Here is a photo slideshow from the local newspaper. Registration may be required.
The article was, overall, pretty good. At least the reference to a Marriot hotel was a “heavenly Marriot Hotel”. My biggest concern was her refference:
“And although Mormons aren’t visibly involved in any of the ugly, ongoing smackdowns involving Jews, Muslims, Hindus and a variety of Christian sects, it may just be sheer luck.” Not that I’m nit picking but when someone adds the word “visibly” they essentially are saying they think its happening but you can’t prove it.
That was probably the most negative impression I got from it. When the Winter Quarter’s temple had its open house in Omaha, NE people gathered in the trail center across the street. Some of the questions she posses at the end were asked there rather than in the temple.
I even remember hearing about two nuns from a local school here that exclaimed, “this truly is a house of God” after taking the tour.
If she really wants to know the answers to her questions, I wonder if she would be open to some missionaries coming by. “We read your article, and were wondering if you really wanted to know?”
Has anyone here emailed her?
I just did and asked her to visit our blog and also asked her if she would be interested in a visit from the missionaries.
The article, while somewhat positve also contained some innacuracies one would not expect from a professor of media and religion at U.S.C.:
Of course Church membership exceeds 12 million which I realize is more than 11 mission, but is also inaccurate.
Neither the Prophet Joseph, or anyone else claimed the plates were written in a language only he understood. They did not chronicle the sojourn of one of Israel’s 10 lost tribes, rather a remnant of the House of Israel.
The Book of Mormon does not contain a new gospel, but rather the fullness of the everlasting gospel. as found in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
The plates did not disappear. They were reclaimed by Moroni after the translation was completed.
Guy, good points all. I think we get so used to errors in the media about the Church that we gloss over them sometimes.
Update: Prof. Winston has responded to my e-mail saying she doesn’t need a visit from the missionaries. She says she has “studied the LDS Church in depth” and is “very familiar with its history and theology.”
. . . but just can’t get the facts right yet though?
Charles wrote: “If she really wants to know the answers to her questions, I wonder if she would be open to some missionaries coming by.”
Do you believe her last question on plural marriage would be answered? What’s the official doctrine on it? Is there one? Does the Church support the early teachings that Celestial Marriage is Plural Marriage? Or that God is married plurally? What about McConckie’s views that Plural Marriage will be restored in the Millenium or after?
Antonio
Boy, Guy, you’re picky. Overall, I think it’s pretty hard to expect a non-believer to write a more accurate or favorable article. I wonder if you are similarly picky when Pres. Hinckley says that only 2%-5% of our people were involved in polygamy.
ed wrote:
Ed,
The author of this particular article, Prof. Diane Winston holds herself out as an educated author and academic. Prof. Winston received her B.A. from Brandeis, a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, a masters in journalism from Columbia, and her Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University.
By her own admission, she says she has “studied the LDS Church in depth” and is “very familiar with its history and theology.” (See comment #12 above.)
If she is going to publish an article in one of the nation’s premire daily newspapers with a daily circulation in excess of 1.2 million, and an internet circulation of potentially millions more, I don’t think it picky to require the type of accuracy to which I alluded in my comment.
I admitted in my comment the article was somewhat positive; however, I don’t feel being a non-believer (or even a believer), with the academic credentials of Prof. Winston justifies the sloppiness of her fact checking.
Regards,
Guy
My only real beef with the article is the last paragraph. If you are writing an article to inform your readers, why leave them dangling like that? Why not research the questions yourself and then answer them in the article?
Ok, I also thought that saying the Gold Plates “disappeared” was a bit uncharitable as well.
I think Guy hit it on the head. If she is as informed why get her facts wrong. Furthermore by her admission, she knows our history and theology, so the answer to the first question in her final paragraph should already be known. She should also know where to find answers to such.
Antonio, I’m sure the missionaries themselves would not be able to get to in depth, but it is clear that there are others in the church who would be more than happy to answer her questions.
Opinions in journalism will always surface. Substituting opinion, unsubstantiated inferences and unrelated rhetorical questions for facts (or at least official doctrine) or without seeking the answers is poor journalism.
Hey Mike thanks for that link to the OC Register’s photos. Going to the open house this afternoon, can’t wait!
Guy,
Perhaps you were overly picky towards someone on the outside looking in. The only real mistake she made was the part about the Book of Mormon being about one of the 10 lost tribes. She hadn’t read the book, or if she did, she missed that point.
re: 11 vs 12 million. Someone may have handed her an old press release or old pamphlet, or her time point is off by a couple years. No big deal. Close enough. Show me group photos of 11 mill and 12 mill and I couldn’t tell the difference. And if you only count average sacrament meeting attendance, we’re only at about 4 mill or less anyway.
re: “a language only he understood”. Although we don’t word it that way, that is not a false statement. Since only Joseph and no one else (that we know of) had a Urim-and-Thummim at the time, the claim “a language only he understood” is truthful.
re: “new gospel”. This is accurate from an outsider’s viewpoint. It sure was new to everyone that Joseph preached it to. They hadn’t heard it before, so it’s new to them. I hadn’t heard it before I investigated, so it was NEW to me too. The only thing that makes it “not new” is our _claim_ that it is a “restoration,” and not “actually” new. And she covered that base by saying “sought to restore the ancient church”
re: plates “disappeared”. She obviously didn’t mean disappear into thin air, and I don’t believe she implied “lost”, though you may have inferred that if you were looking to make her an offender for not wording things exactly to our liking. Joseph had them, Moroni took them back, then Joseph didn’t have them any more, and he didn’t know where Moroni was keeping them. (The “room deep inside Hill Cumorah” account may have come later, but it was not published until much later. Not until long after JS’s death if I’m correct.) So they’re gone, disappeared, vamoosed. The fact that Joseph didn’t say where they were, other than to say Moroni had them, adds legitimacy to the “disappeared” word choice.
——————-
All:
Re-read the web page with her piece. It’s not an _article_, it’s an “op-ed editorial” ( where facts don’t much matter anyway).
The banner on the web page calls it “EDITORIALS, OP-ED”. Opinion writers and editorialists are not required to present all the salient facts like a real reporter should, nor are they required to provide unbiased opinions. Think of all the conservative and liberal columnists you know of. It’s a _column_ not a reporter’s _article_.
Also note the “opinion” sub-directory in the URL:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-faith7aug07,1,5052367.story
Editorials, Op-eds and opinions are known for advocacy journalism and entertainment, not “just the facts, ma’am.”
So given all that, I think it came out very well.
It’s interesting that the same impressions come over people when “touring” our temples – white booties and the hotel thing to name two. Here’s an article about the Newport Beach Temple open house:
ARTICLE ABOUT THE NEWPORT BEACH TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE
O.C.’s hottest attraction, and it’s free. An average of about 7,500 people a day are taking the Mormon Temple Tour in Newport Beach.
FRANK MICKADEIT
Register columnist
The hot new O.C. summer attraction seems at first a lot like one of O.C.’s oldest summer attractions.
You park a long way away and take a shuttle to the site. There you join hundreds of people waiting in a line that snakes every which way in the hot sun, sometimes doubling back on itself – all for a chance to be escorted by smiling, well- groomed and unfailingly polite people into a huge building shrouded in mystery.
Unlike Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, however, the Mormon Temple Tour in Newport Beach doesn’t cost a dime. Also, unlike D-land, admission will be cut off soon unless you are a Mormon in good standing. The last public tour is Aug. 20.
An average of about 7,500 people a day go through the temple, and before it’s over, an estimated 165,000 will have done so. Steve Samuelian, a church spokesman, estimates the crowds in the days immediately following the July 23 opening were 60 percent Mormon. Lately, though, that has flipped, he said, to about 60 percent non-Mormon.
“I think people have heard from friends that Mormons are safe,” he laughed.
Hey, I’ve long thought Mormons were safe. Toosafe. Covered a football game at BYU once and couldn’t find a cup of hot coffee anywhere.
But I knowwhat Samuelian means. The stuff people use to slam them: They are a cult. They are weird. They wear stuff under their clothes that would make Michael Jackson’swardrobe seem normal. Jesus Christis in their church’s formal name, but they really don’t believe in his divinity. The Osmonds.
I’ve thought all those things at one time, even though I can’t recall a single bad experience with a Mormon. And as the shuttle bus pulled up to the temple on Bonita Canyon Drive yesterday with me and Erikaaboard, my Catholic guilt was kicking in.
This is going to be a no-win column, I’m thinking. I can’t goof on the Mormons without coming off as anti-Mormon. But if I don’t goof on the Mormons, am I not segregating them into some separate category – which itself is discriminatory? A conundrum that would stump Aquinas.
So I goofed just a little. I made fun of the teens who were shoeing us with the mandatory white booties before we entered the temple and told Erika, “See? You could have done a lot worse for a summer job.” When our guide, Victor Lundquist, noted that the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City had taken 40 years to build and that “a lot of people were killed in the construction, like 10 or 12,” I politely asked him, “So, how many were killed in the construction of thistemple?”
None that he knew of.
But the kidding stopped when we walked through the bronze doors.
To try and get a grip on whether there was anything “weird,” or whether I was just projecting my ignorance and biases, I asked myself in each room we entered: If someone who had never been to any church saw this and a Catholic cathedral, which would seem weirder?
Well, if you’re talking about a European cathedral, is it even a contest? Gargoyles; catacombs with bones stacked like cordwood; life-size statuary of pitiful sinners forever damned to the fires of hell reaching up to grab the living; the head – the head- of St. Catherine of Sienamounted in a glass case, her index finger propped up nearby. Try to work up an appetite for a bowl of minestrone after you’ve seen that.
So when confronted with the Mormon’s baptismal room, in which the font is perched on the backs of 12 oxen, it seemed almost understated.
And if there’s any doubt as to whether Mormons consider Jesus Christ divine, throughout the temple are more paintings of him than at a Tijuana flea market. The highlight of the temple, the Celestial Room? Think of the lobby of a five-star hotel with a little touch of the White House East Room. In other words, the only thing weird about it is how normal it seems.
On thetour was Anna Altshuler, a UCI medical student. She’s Jewish but has friends who are Mormon, so she decided to take the tour. She spent a lot of time talking to Lundquist about architecture.
“I liked the inside much more than the outside. I liked how calm and tranquil it feels. The chandeliers were beautiful.”
This is true. A drive-by in your car doesn’t cut it. The exterior architecture is too worried about fitting into Newport Coast rather than making its own statement. (Lest you think Mormon architecture has to be as bland as their missionaries’ wardrobes, have a look at the temple in La Jolla – which my architect father called “rocket gothic” when it opened in 1993.)
Needless to say, I recommend going inside. Reservations: (800) 537-6214.
I feel this one is very positive
Emily, thanks for sharing that article. Pretty darned good.