Elder Jay Bostwick, second from left, and other LDS missionaries visit with Elizabeth Musembi and her family in Kilungu, Kenya. The Musembis were pioneers among LDS members in Kenya.
The talk of the town on Broadway these days is The Book of Mormon: The Musical. The brainchild of South Park creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone, the show lampoons religion - both Christianity in general and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - in its portrayal of two stereotyped LDS missionaries (the Arrogant One and the Loser One) and their experiences leaving "sheltered" lives in Utah to serve in Uganda for two years.
Poking fun at Latter-day Saints is nothing new for Parker and Stone; they've mocked Joseph Smith and a number of other Mormon beliefs on South Park over the years. When I heard they'd targeted my faith in a big-budget Broadway show, I couldn't help but to cringe - so many misconceptions already exist surrounding my religion, and the play just perpetuates the stereotypes and half-truths, based on what I could gather from listening to its soundtrack online. That the show, which has been hailed as both intensely profane and sweetly warm-hearted, racked up 14 Tony nominations, including Best Musical, puzzles me. Other faiths have been portrayed lovingly on Broadway before - Fiddler on the Roof or The Sound of Music, anyone? - so seeing my church's debut on the Great White Way be one of ridicule makes me a little heartsick.
I know the show is a satire, but just how off base is it? How do the scenarios in the play compare to the reality of missionary life in Africa? Having neither served a mission nor visited Africa, I couldn't really tell, so I turned to the experts: two friends who served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission (which used to include Uganda) almost a decade apart. Both men listened to soundtrack and provided feedback about the play's take on mission life and the LDS Church in general. Here's what they had to say:
ON LDS BELIEFS
"The Church actually came out with an accurate statement: ‘The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people's lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ.' I completely agree with that. As I was listening to the first couple of songs, I wouldn't say there were flat-out lies, but it presented LDS beliefs through the irreverent lens of entertainment. The result was stereotypical, entertaining songs. From an LDS person's perspective, you can laugh and make fun of yourself, but if you're looking from an outside perspective thinking this is what we believe, what our culture is, then it definitely does not give a representation of that." - Eric Collyer, a 22-year-old BYU student from La Crescenta, Calif., who served from 2007 to 2009
"Did the creators aim to give an accurate portrayal of Mormon missionaries or of Africa? Probably not. Nobody expects strict historical accuracy in The Sound of Music, either. Does this mean that The Book of Mormon creators have no ethical obligations to the community they have chosen to lampoon? Probably not. But as long as people are not looking to The Book of Mormon: The Musical to be educated about the Church and its doctrines, as long as they are not expecting an authentic glimpse of average Church members encountering the shocking realities of the world, I guess I don't have a problem with the fact that the musical exists and that there is an audience that finds it entertaining." - Jay Bostwick, a 31-year-old BYU graduate student from South Jordan, Utah, who served from 1999 to 2001
ON MISSIONARY LIFE
"As far as the challenges of being a missionary, we tended to be concerned and troubled about issues much closer to us than larger societal problems: leadership misusing Church funds, rumors about the Church being a Satanic cult (published in the national newspaper early in my mission), disagreements and backbiting between members in the fairly small congregations... There were larger problems in society, of course, but these were not so prevalent in public spaces that you were having to wrestle with them on a day-to-day basis. And to be honest, you get used to some things... And it doesn't mean you ignored the fact that the problems existed or that, as the musical implies, you just ‘turn off' your connection with reality. If anyone thinks we as missionaries were not really grappling with the poverty, sickness, and suffering we inevitably came across, they're dead wrong. Things were hard to cope with. We were troubled, we were angry, we were disappointed, we were devastated. We often laughed, when there wasn't anything else to do. We did pray, we did rely on our faith in Christ and in the teachings of the Church; that doesn't mean, though, that we ever felt we had easy answers or that we found quick and permanent resolution to the concerns that troubled us." - Jay Bostwick
"In the song ‘Baptize Me,' it talks about a missionary baptizing his first convert, and the entire song is like a sexual ballad - it makes baptism essentially into sex. It was kind of tough because living in Africa, I can't tell you how many times as a white man people wanted me to marry their daughters so I could take them back to America, or they wanted white ‘seed.' I wouldn't say the song is accurate by any stretch of the imagination, I wouldn't say it in that way - and in the song, they don't say anything outright, but every line is filled with innuendo. I felt awkward through the entire song. I'd say it's 80 percent inaccurate - accurate in theme, perhaps, but inaccurate in the message and how it's presented." - Eric Collyer
ON LIFE IN AFRICA
"When I first heard about the musical, I was honestly baffled that, of all the places in the world, it was set in Uganda: how can the experience of missionaries in Uganda somehow stand as a typical LDS mission experience? Having heard the music now, it seems likely the creators thought it would be intriguing, or at least amusing, to juxtapose stereotypical Mormon optimism against some of the most troubling social issues the world has to offer. Yes, East Africa has its problems. The missionaries I served with and I encountered poverty, malnutrition, disease (including HIV/AIDS), homelessness, drug addiction, corruption in government and law enforcement, illiteracy, occasional transportation riots, etc. It would be completely wrong, though, to say that these are the things that characterize my experience in Kenya. I still wonder if the musical's purposes wouldn't have been better realized with another setting besides East Africa." - Jay Bostwick
Posted by thetechnologyvault
06/02/2011 at 12:20 PM
Book of Mormon Musical Not Sweet
I keep seeing news articles repeating the term “surprisingly sweet” when evaluating the response of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the musical. A play that mocks as this one does and depicts hurling of the most profane of insults at God is anything but admirable. Thanks for pointing out the real experience of Mormon missionaries in your article here. My experience as a missionary in Canada years ago was anything but naive and uninformed.
Thank you, Christa Woodall, for doing the research that Parker, Stone, & Lopez blithely neglected. They obviously had no idea that there are already about 7,000 Latter-day Saints in Uganda, led, as always, by faithful local members. http://bit.ly/h7cMH8
In a remarkable op-ed response to the play in the New York Times, David Brooks censures its message that Mormonism should wise up and turn its founding stories and scriptures into metaphor:
“The only problem with “The Book of Mormon” (you realize when thinking about it later) is that its theme is not quite true. Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity doesn’t actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False.” http://nyti.ms/lcmZl0
It was Maimonides who first guided perplexed Jews to interpret their founding documents metaphorically, although that broad path had already been blazed by Christendom. The Third of the Rambam’s Thirteen Principles states: “G-d does not have a body. Physical concepts do not apply to Him. There is nothing whatsoever that resembles Him at all. http://bit.ly/lKBZ6T
But Mormonism was founded by a plain dirt farmer who saw two glorious beings and declared, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit.” (D&C 130:22) http://bit.ly/jfHwSX . To us, even spirit is a form of matter. (D&C 131:7-8) http://bit.ly/kCKM09 .
Add to these physical realities the continuous provenance, over a thousand years, of metal plates inscribed by prophet recorders, each of who recruited a faithful successor; the testimony of three witnesses who saw Moroni and heard the voice of G-d, the testimony of eight other witnesses who hefted the plates, and the fact that all twelve witnesses (Joseph Smith included) were faithful to their testimony to the end, and we Mormons are, for the already-foreseen future, happily stuck with reality. http://bit.ly/iixumuhttp://bit.ly/mJsthyhttp://bit.ly/lFWKll
My first introduction to Mormonism was at a Unitarian Church/Salt Lake Acting Company production of “Saturday’s Voyeur”. It parodied Mormonism by putting its own words to familiar Broadway show tunes: “There is nothing like our Church, nothing in the world”, “Beedlee dee dee dee, two elders”, “But everything was beautiful at Mutual”, “I feel “icky, oh so icky”. I thought it was quite funny at the time. Then I married a Mormon lady who had left the Church on account of divorce and I adopted her children. Two years later, she admitted that she wanted to be back in the Church and I had to find out what the big deal was. It only took me a week to read up on Mormon beliefs and find myself totally impressed with what Mormons actually believe. A month or so after I was baptized, I saw a warmly funny Mormon musical called “Saturday’s Warrior” and realized how mean-spirited and condescending the parody “Saturday’s Voyeur” was. I also discovered that Mormons are quite good at laughing at themselves. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of Mormon movies and plays since then that show Mormons as quite well-informed and sophisticated in their understanding of the ways of the world.
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06/02/2011 at 12:20 PM
I keep seeing news articles repeating the term “surprisingly sweet” when evaluating the response of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the musical. A play that mocks as this one does and depicts hurling of the most profane of insults at God is anything but admirable. Thanks for pointing out the real experience of Mormon missionaries in your article here. My experience as a missionary in Canada years ago was anything but naive and uninformed.
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