| A mixed bag of temple reviews in the Canadian press | |||
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By Nick Newman Mormon Times | |||
Seeing the local press go crazy when the latest Mormon temple is ready for an open house is nothing new to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet, it's always interesting to see what will be said about the most sacred place in all of Mormon culture. Questions always abound: Is the press going to get it right this time? Is a prominent LDS member going to be interviewed? What kind of quotes is the opposition going to get in an article that's supposed to be about an LDS temple? A day before the Vancouver British Columbia temple is unveiled for all the public to see, a handful of media members were allowed to tour the temple and ask any questions they wanted about Mormon belief. The event received coverage in three British Columbia papers -- The Vancouver Sun, The Langley Times and the Langley Advance. Here's a reaction to what was said in each paper: The Vancouver Sun: The biggest bright side here is that the open house made the front page of the paper, and actually occupied the most prominent space on the page. There were a few related articles, a sidebar on what each room in the temple is about, and a photo gallery of pictures from to all media from the church. Other than that, it feels like the Sun attempted to be fair and balanced in its reporting, while really just letting misunderstandings run amok in the article. Mormon Times columnist Joel Campbell lambasted the paper, which is one of the larger newspapers in Canada, in a Feb 17 piece. He wrote an open letter to Sun editor Patricia Graham, decrying the paper's use of the term "Mormon sect" and "Mormon Fundamentalists" in articles about a polygamous sect in the area. He said that use of these terms kills the paper's accuracy, doesn't serve its readers and says the paper is out of step with the "best journalism in North America." After reading that piece, one would think the association between polygamists and the LDS Church would be treated with greater care, especially on an article about the Vancouver temple. No luck for Mormons. The first paragraph, Sun reporter Douglas Todd references "Mormon fundamentalist polygamists" and tells readers that Mormons have been doing open houses recently to show that they're not polygamists. "That's one reason patriarchs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are this month inviting the public to have a rare look inside the luxurious interior of their new temple in Langley," Todd writes. Later, he says, "Because of a history of tense relationships with conventional Christians and the larger world, the U.S.-founded Latter-day Saints have been going out of their way in recent years to dispel outsiders' suspicions that they are a 'secretive' religion." Excuse me? Temple open houses have been around longer than this recent explosion of polygamist news in North America. In fact, the first public open house was given in 1893 for the Salt Lake Temple, and then in 1945 at the Idaho Falls, Idaho temple. Every single temple the church operates today has had an open house. The rest of the article is decently written, although it's only somewhat about the temple. Todd does quote the "top Canadian" of the church, Elder William R. Walker, of the First Quorum of the Seventy and Executive Director of the LDS Church's temple department, and gives him two-word quotes to talk about the temple. He also references baptism for the dead, "eternal weddings," the "extravagant indoor pool where Mormons are baptized for deceased loved ones," and the celestial room. But with every mention of LDS temples and belief comes references to polygamy, "unorthodox doctrines" like the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith as a "young mystic," and the Glenn Beck controversy. He even quotes a professor of theology at an evangelical college in Vancouver, who then talks about Mormons trying to take place in mainstream Christianity by changing the way the church logo looks and the advertisements focusing on the family. The Langley Times: Times writer Andrew Buchholtz wrote a brilliant piece on the temple, complete with an interactive video just below the headline. The video shows a little bit of the "welcome video" visitors will be shown before going into the temple, and shows footage of Elder Walker's address to the media before the tour. At the end, he took the time to interview Elder Paul D. M. Christensen, the former Abbotsford, British Columbia stake president who was called at April Conference to be an Area Authority Seventy over British Columbia and Alaska. In the coverage, Buchholtz does what a religion reporter should do when highlighting a religion that readers aren't well versed in: he gives the people in the know, the ones who practice it, all the say. The quotes from Elder Walker are quotes that form actual sentences, and he makes Elder Walker sound a little more informal and inviting than the two-word quotes the Sun gives. The Times gave biblical references for the baptismal font (and actually called it by the right name), gives specific descriptions on what each room does, and correctly explains the difference between LDS temples and meetinghouses. All in all, this is definitely an article worth reposting on Facebook and Twitter, and printing out for friends and relatives who won't be able to see the temple, but would like to know more about it. Langley Advance: This paper, while not giving as many inches or multimedia options to the Open House story, does a textbook job of coverage. Troy Landreville of the Advance explains what each room in the temple is for, and gives Elder Walker opportunity to explain why it's a blessing to have a temple for British Columbia Mormons. The best quote, and one that should have been in the Vancouver Sun as an opposition to the idea that open houses are a new thing to save face from polygamy, explained how a temple open house is part of church protocol. "This is normal protocol for us," Walker said. "When we build a new temple, we have an open house. It's not a new thing." E-mail: nnewman@desnews.com | |||
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MormonTimes.com Originally published Thursday, Apr. 08, 2010 | |||
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