September Dawn on Medved Show

TitusTodd · Senior Member

September Dawn on Medved Show

TitusTodd · Senior Member

I really don't think Cain realizes what his film does to the image of our church, namely that of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Michael Medved has the benefit of seeing the movie and stated that both those prophets were portrayed in strictly a negative light. Medved confronted them on that fact and asked why some positive aspects of both could not have been portrayed. Cain stated that the time was not available to devote to it.

Cain mentions that what prompted the movie was the religious extremism of Islam. The religious extremism has been present in a part of Islam for quite some time and continues to be. The motivation behind it is the very elements of Islam itself. What prompted Mountain Meadows Massacre was basically fear and not any part of Mormonism as a religion itself and such acts were not perpetrated by any group of our religion prior to or after MMM. So, I find few parallels and find Cain trying to show them a shallow attempt and disrespectful to Mormons. For the sake of producing a movie and making a statement about religious extremism, he has trodded over Mormons not giving much thought to how using a sad event in our history in such a narrow focus will improperly reflect on us or even the body of Saints back then.

I really believe if Cain had wanted to, he could have better shown the motivation behind the Mormons who committed the atrocity of MMM. His only attempt at that is showing the murder of Joseph Smith.

However, Cain's intention was to create an emotional portrayal of an example of what he saw as religious extremism. Showing there were genuine non-extremist reasons behind MMM would have lessoned the impact of the movie. He had to show a narrow focus to make his parallels to Islamic extremism work at the cost of a truer portrayal of the events of MMM.

I will note that Cain (I believe) mentioned the Church's information release at our website that covers the incident. He stated there is little difference between that information and what is portrayed in his movie. What little difference is present has a major impact and that is in the role of Brigham Young.

Again, these comments are based on what Michael Medved had to say regarding the movie and his questions to Cain about it. I have not seen the movie. It has not come out yet for public release and will not be until August. I don't know if I will see it and definitely won't pay for that privilege.

-- Edited by TitusTodd at 15:45, 2007-06-22

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Crap, I posted my comments in the Current Events forum...

I thought the movie makers flattered themselves a bit much, by thinking that this was a topic that had never been done before or that it was not something the church has never responded to... This is exactly the sort of thing that is wrong with public apologetics in general... no matter how many times you address the topic, someone's gonna claim that up til now, you never really confessed or said you were sorry, or whatever.

I was very impresssed with how Medved handled the issue, and he made a very compelling argument for why anti-religious discussions of any type are destructive and easily exploitable by folks who want to see all religion in the country abolished...

I'm also impressed that he takes an hour once in a while to defend Mitt's mormonism, though he personally agrees with Mitt's approach...

--Ray

-- Edited by rayb at 16:15, 2007-06-22

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Btw, it was a total fluke (if there is such a thing) that I caught the show. I have avoided listening to anything pretty much all week long. And I only get to listen to an hour or possibly an hour and a half during even when I do listen. :)

--Ray

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Here's the parallel thread I posted. It has a link to the article Voight used to feel good about what he'd done...

http://bountiful.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=92298&p=3&topicID=12321402

--Ray

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

When does this movie come out? I've heard "this week" and then I've heard August...

I'm seein' it, btw.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Turns out lds.org has linked the article on the very front page.

The movie apparently takes the worst possible interpretation of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, which is unfortunate.

--Ray

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

But... it is ... possible, right?

arbilad · Head Chef

There's the little question of speed of communication. There was no way to send a guy on horse with a message and get a response back from Brigham in time. There was no telegraph there. It was physically impossible for Brigham Young to have ordered the massacre.
What most people neglect to mention when talking about the massacre is that the group which was massacred was really trying to piss everyone off. There were some in the group who claimed to have been in the mob that killed Joseph Smith. They were threatening to "finish the job". They were stealing and killing cattle along the way. They really got on the Indians' bad side in a huge way (although I forget the specifics). So, stop a moment to think; this group was antagonizing Indians in a place where they are still known to attack white men, they are stealing cattle in a time and place where such is frequently punished by death. I'm not saying that they were justified in killing them. Brigham Young, if I remember correctly, even sent a message, that didn't get there in time, telling them to practice kindness in the face of these provocations. But they were not the innocent settlers set upon by savage mormons that most people claim they were.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Actually, Arbi, the reason why most historians don't mention that is because that was an excuse used by the perpetrators and it is unclear (since all those who were on the other side ended up dead) whether or not they really were trying to pick a fight. And I believe it was Parley P. Pratt who'd just been killed, and it was him to whom those massacred were making reference.

I think it is more likely that this is a case of a group of mormons thinking the end had come, and that these settlers were seen as an enemy force.

(kinda like those saints today who have their guns and their food storage and they were gonna protect it from invaders. :) )

Further what occurred doesn't justify what happened. I think it is appropriate to suggest that Brigham Young had little to do with the affair, other than he didn't immediately foresee the trouble, using the spirit of prophecy. This is a hard thing for many to understand, thinking the prophet should just automatically "know" exactly what's gonna happen and how to avoid all troubles.

I think the incident is interesting from Brigham Young's perspective, and the moviemakers missed an opportunity to tell an interesting story, and rather decided to make a sort of scary horror story intent upon scaring people about all organized religions, rather than exploring the more sophisticated possibility that Brigham Young was indeed horrified by what occurred--despite the embattled state of the saints in the west due to government molestation and their history with mobs and murderers.

--Ray

arbilad · Head Chef

Here is the Official Church Position on the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I know. I already posted a link to that.

--Ray

arbilad · Head Chef

Ray, many members tend to not even read threads where a super long URL is posted and messes with the word wrap of every post thereafter. That, plus, I need to turn off my auto-ignore Ray feature

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

I read the link. I found the information very interesting and cleared up some of the historical questions I had. I think it is safe to say that this is more of an issue of some mormons acting badly rather than the Mormon Church Ordering Murders of Innocent Wagon Train.