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Victims of the Mormons

Victims of the Mormons

Last updated on: October 1, 2024 at 12:31 pm by Dan Peterson

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Victims of the Mormons 2024-10-01T12:31:50-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Fine films such as this 1911 effort have often dealt sensitively with religious issues. “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” “The God Makers,” “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” “September Dawn,” “Under the Banner of Heaven,” and other similar efforts continue a noble tradition.

In this promotional still from “A Victim of the Mormons,” an evil missionary (played by Valdemar Psilander) is baptizing a bevy of young virgins in the Salt Lake Temple. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). For my last several years teaching at Brigham Young University, I had a framed copy of this important photographic document — minus the odd green tinge — hanging on my office wall.

I really enjoyed this article by my friend Robert Starling, who is a multi-decade veteran of the film and television industry and who co-founded the organization called Associated Latter-day Media Artists, or ALMA: “The (Lord’s Media) Empire Strikes Back – with the light saber of truth.” If, like me, you’re interested in the image of Latter-day Saints in the media and/or you’re hoping that we will continue to develop our own artistic, literary, musical, and cinematic expressions, I think that you’ll find his article well worth your time.

And, while I’m thinking about films and the Restoration, I’m going to remind you yet again — and not for the last time — that there will be one final opportunity to catch a “sneak peak” early screening of Six Days in August prior to its general release into theaters on Thursday, 10 October. That will be on 7 October, the Monday following this weekend’s General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nine Cinemark theaters on the Wasatch Front — in American Fork, Draper, Farmington, Ogden, Orem, Provo, Salt Lake City, Sandy/Midvale, and West Jordan — will be offering these advance looks: Six Days in August – Early Access

On Sheridan Avenue in downtown Cody, Wyoming (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

You may be aware of the bitter controversy and the multiple legal challenges that have delayed work on the long-announced Cody Wyoming Temple. Passionate opponents have sought to block its construction and to force it to be moved somewhere else. They have alleged that the 9,950-square-foot temple — by a considerable margin one of the smallest ever built by the Church — which is planned to sit in the center of a 4.69-acre parcel of landscaped private grounds, will dominate Cody’s skyline, looming over the city, blocking views of the mountains and the night sky, destroying its environment, and ruining its neighborhood, and that it constitutes an arrogant attempt on the part of the Church to dominate the town and to impose Latter-day Saint theological tenets upon the innocent residents of a mostly non-Latter-day Saint area. (By the way, it took me about ten seconds to find a house for sale in Cody that — at 9,148 square feet — is very nearly the same size as the future temple. There are probably others, and perhaps some that are even larger.)

Owing to a series of favorable local-government votes and judicial rulings, however, construction work has finally commenced on the building: “Ground Broken for Cody Wyoming Temple: The third house of the Lord in the state”

This pleases me very much, and so I include here a link to photographs of the groundbreaking ceremony: Cody Wyoming Temple Photograph Gallery: Construction. I’ll admit, though, that I can’t quite see — from these photographs, at least, which were taken at the site itself — how the temple will dominate Cody’s skyline, loom over the city, or block views of the mountains and the night sky. Please take a quick look at them for yourself. Maybe I’ll need to drive up there someday and do a closer personal inspection.

Many years ago, during my mission in Switzerland, I happened upon a collection of clippings focused on the construction, twenty years before, in Zollikofen b. Bern, of the first temple in Europe. One of the articles, an editorial opposing the building of that temple, included an image of the Salt Lake Temple imposed upon the actual site there in a wooded suburb of the Swiss federal capital, Bern — plopped right down in the middle of a residential neighborhood of quiet middle-class houses. The image was roughly four or five times the size of the real Salt Lake Temple. It was large enough and tall enough that it might well, if built, have interfered with aviation and changed local weather patterns. The question essentially posed by the editorial was, “Do you want this in your neighborhood?” And, of course, no sane person would. Nor did anybody ever have any intention of creating such a monstrosity. The image was pure demagogic sensationalism.

A public domain aerial view of Cody, Wyoming, from Wikimedia Commons

I think that the outrage that has been provoked by the Cody Wyoming Temple sets the proper mood for my conclusion: You have every reason to despair when you see the evils done by theists and theism in this otherwise wonderful world of ours. Nevertheless, and without meaning to pile on, I feel it my duty to keep you informed, to the extent that I’m able to do so, of the details of the religious atrocities that I find in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™. Here are just a few recent specimens:

“Plagued by a Youth Suicide Epidemic, Provo, Utah, Worked Together to Find a Remedy—and Became 2024’s Nicest Place in America”

“How the Church of Jesus Christ Is Helping Those Affected by Hurricane Helene: Latter-day Saints are assisting thousands after the storm brought widespread damage and flooding across the southeastern United States”

“BYU fans turn out in droves to support Kansas State QB’s cancer fund drive”

“Principal at center of Kansas State QB’s fundraiser thanks BYU fans for their support: More than $50,000 has been raised on behalf of Avery Johnson’s high school principal, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer”

“Latter-day Saint leader sends BYU students a note about their treatment of Kansas State’s football team: Former university President Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles asked BYU administrators to read a short note at the start of a campus assembly this week. Here is what it said, and what K-State’s quarterback and others said”

“How BYU is leaving its mark — on and off the field: Cougar faithful are leaving a positive impression when BYU hits the road. Here’s what is standing out”

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