Quote from New York Times article called, Mormons’ Ad Campaign May Play Out on the ’12 Campaign Trail:
After Sunday worship in recent months, Mormon bishops around the country gathered their congregations for an unusual PowerPoint presentation to unveil the church’s latest strategy for overcoming what it calls its “perception problem.”
The article goes on to talk about those Mormon ads which attempt to portray Mormons as normal, interesting folks rather than the “secretive,” “cultish,” “sexist,” “controlling,” “pushy,” and “anti-gay” people the research shows that the public perceives them as.
So, the obvious way to accomplish this task of not appearing “controlling” is to hold another mandatory meeting after an already lengthy meeting. Meetings are a favorite Mormon past-time! At these meetings, entire congregations were “pushed” to create their own profile on Mormon.org to tell the world how normal, non-controlling an un-pushy they are.
It’s not “cultish” at all that my 14 year old son attended such a meeting and has since developed his own mormon.org profile. I so badly want to lament the things he says in that profile, but I won’t because it is really just verbatim the conversations I’ve had with his mother as well as the typical declarations that they were all encouraged to write …
There are lots of superlatives, logical fallacies but all well-meaning.
You know how the things that hurt or bother you most about your loved ones are often the traits most similar to your own?
I remember back when I was a early adolescent like my son is now, I once heard the bishop making a plea to the congregation for building funds. It must have been a good, convincing plea because with my next tithing donation I made a large building fund donation. By large I mean in a “widow’s mite” sort of way. I think I had something like $20. Like a good Mormon boy, I paid 10% tithing and then gave the $18 remaining dollars to the building fund because the Lord obviously needed it more than I did. I was later praised from the pulpit for that and thereby upped my ante as one of the righteous, obedient and faithful kids in the ward. I was a WBK (well-behaved kid).
It didn’t earn me any friends among my peers; I can admit that much.
But I certainly garnered plenty of kudos from the adults and I earned my Mom some bragging rights. I see the same things happening with my son and it pains me as much as it hurts any father to see their own child making the same mistakes he made … and I feel powerless to intervene in any way. The major difference being that my son now has some similar WBK friends, so I’m sure there was peer encouragement there rather than the further alienation I experienced in my ward as a youth.
My son is the child of a working mother and a gay father. It’s not inconceivable that his profile would possibly contain details of those facts that express his admiration for his working Mom and love for his gay father. It doesn’t. Wouldn’t that dispel the myths of “sexism” and “anti-gay”? Yet that’s not the approach. I don’t see the real meaty issues addressed anywhere in those profiles and especially nothing that makes Mormonism desirable. It’s really a bunch of people who are members of their religion for the very same reason that almost anyone in this world is a member of a religion… because they were born into a family with that religion. It was predetermined.
Still, doesn’t all of this actually FEED the negative perceptions rather than overcome them?
- Accepting a child’s complete wallet as a donation?
- Encouraging an impressionable adolescent to claim a knowledge of things he couldn’t possible know at 14?
- Creating a database of testimonies that all read hauntingly alike?
- Allowing children under 18 to do your missionary work?
- Avoiding in these mormon.org profiles any discussions on those sensitive topics Mormons want to disassociate from such as “sexist” and “anti-gay”?
As a father I’m dismayed, but as a former Mormon I’m not surprised.
Is it effective? Does it change perceptions?
The methods employed contribute to the perceptions. The only people impressed are the Mormons themselves. Mormonism has been around long enough that the general impressions have some truth in them.
Thou doth protest too much methinks.
And before you go, here’s a very funny parody of the very thing I’m talking about with regards to my children and testimonies
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- One Last Word on Mormons and Christianity (dadsprimalscream.wordpress.com)
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As you stated in your post, the PR folks who did polling for the Church determined that the public perceives Mormons as “secretive,” “cultish,” “sexist,” “controlling,” “pushy,” and “anti-gay”.
The problem is that all of those adjectives DO adequately describe the LDS Church. But, rather than try to address the secretive/cultish/sexist/controlling/pushy/anti-gay aspects of the Church, the Brethren decide that the “better” approach is to paint over these issues with a better PR campaign.
And yeah, if only the general public knew how pushy, controlling, and cultish the Church leaders were being in trying to get all these Mormon.org profiles posted…
Amen Brett…The ads address the symptom but not the problem. You are exactly right.
Cognitive Dissenter hit the nail right on the head. It is yet another marketing campaign. But at the same time LDS are discouraged from saying “Mormon” and instead say the full title of the church. They want it both ways. I think that too another way for them to reinforce testimonies. Kind of like Fast and testimony meeting where people go up to the pulpit and bear their testimonies. Except more people read it. If they say it often enough, it because more ingrained and harder to walk away from.
I think you’re right Linds. It’s something that reinforces the whole get a testimony by sharing it thing. When you can get people to testify of something, they are less likely to walk away from it because it would require admitting they once lied about “knowing” it in the first place.
Cognitive Dissenter is right that it all seems harmless enough if it weren’t the people we loved being deceived.
Bleck. Wrong on so many levels.
Ah. LDS Inc.’s euphemistic code speak. “Perception problem” = “Marketing problem.”
They’re exactly like the principals in the oil and natural gas industry who, in 30-second spiffy ads, smile and seem like regular guys who really care while they assure us in their nice soothing voices that they’re taking care of the environment. What a bunch of hooey. It’s all about the money. Their goal is to distract and alter perceptions away from the reality. But they look so nice, don’t they?
The Mormon ad campaign would be hilarious if our loved ones and others weren’t buying into the deception; and if we didn’t know how much the deception harms its victims.
There is a big billboard off the interstate here in Austin Texas that proclaims “I am a Mormon.” It drives my never LDS boyfriend absolutely crazy. I am afraid to look to see if my TBM kids have posted something.
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Where I am the ‘I’m A Mormon’ ads are thankfully not as ubiquitous now as they were a couple of months ago. I can actually watch a few successive opera clips on youtube before getting another one of those ads. 😛
I’m liking my mishies so much I sometimes feel like shaking them silly and telling them to wake up from this religious reverie… And they aren’t even my siblings let alone offsprings. It’s gotta be tough being in your position indeed. 😦 It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from my favorite book (West With the Night), though. The author was a bush pilot operating in British East Africa (now known as Kenya) and she was learning to fly when she ran into a downdraft and almost crashed into a mountain before her instructor took over the plane. After safely maneuvering the thing back to the proper altitude again he said: “I could have warned you — but you shouldn’t be robbed of your right to make mistakes.”
I do think warnings are useful, though, but it’s a good reminder for me when I get too concerned about the mishies… then I think they are probably smart and strong enough to see their way out of this fix one day, once they’re done with this unnaturally religiously-supersaturated missionary period they’re in. One can hope, ay? 🙂 Good luck with you and your son, too!
This article really ticked me off when I read it this morning. I get the print version, and it was right there on the front page below the fold. It amazes me that the LDS Church thinks that an ad campaign that boasts about how “cool” Mormons are will actually work. Perhaps I’m naive, I don’t know. I also didn’t know about the power point presentation. But you’re right, Dad. Those ads don’t address any of the issues that make Mormons “uncool.” You’re right, your son’s real story would never make it on to the site. But a clip of him with his skateboard or garage band probably would.