As a missionary in Sweden, I encountered a lot of alternate styles of thinking and believing. In addition, the frankness of the people who we encountered gave us an interesting insight as to what people believe we believe. For example, a lot of people we met were pretty surprised that we actually had personalities and weren’t just blind followers. I gained my testimony of the gospel through a slightly unconventional process (through anti-mormon literature, which eventually led me to read the Book of Mormon) and so when people heard about that, they were generally surprised that it wasn’t just me following in my parents’ footsteps. So in that respect, a lot of people were wrong about us. We aren’t just idiots who take the general authorities’ word and blindly follow them, we actually think things out in conjunction with taking things with faith. However, the idea that we’re blind followers isn’t completely unsubstantiated sometimes. I know I have been guilty of this and have taken certain principles for truth without really bothering to get a testimony of it myself. Some principles just make sense to me, which is why I’ve been guilty of forgetting to get a spiritual base. It’s tricky because we have to balance reason with faith. The gospel really does make sense, I’ve discovered. But no matter how much sense it makes, the human side of us sometimes prevails if we don’t have a spiritual knowledge of a certain principle. As members of the church who have personally had to develop a spiritual and logical testimony of these principles, we have an amazing opportunity to present things in a way that will make both spiritual AND logical sense to our audiences. Without being too didactic, we can tell stories in a way that makes sense to the audiences and resonates with them in a spiritual way as well. I think that the Jer3miah series did a pretty excellent job of this. Without being too preachy, we were able to see an intriguing series that helped spread certain beliefs that a lot of non-members would even agree with. I was a big fan of how unsure Jeremiah sometimes was as he represented each and every one of us. For example, in the last episode when Ammon delivers the big reveal that Jeremiah is a descendant of a legendary character in the Book of Mormon or when Jeremiah is prompted to kill the bad guy in the cave, we see a sort of struggle to understand which is followed by a spiritual confirmation and eventual acceptance. It was interesting to see that Jeremiah’s character was actually a reflection of several non-member audiences that saw the film, which is exactly what some of the articles we read talked about. Many audiences probably went/ probably will go through the same process as we make these films where they may be confused but then receive a spiritual and then logical resonation.
I really enjoyed reading your post, and I think that what you said about how we sometimes are guilty of being “blind followers” is very powerful. It is true that we need to have a basis of faith and knowledge to have a strong foundation in the gospel. I find it interesting that, in so many aspects of our lives, we need to have a work ethic to gain knowledge and a faith in ourselves to be successful. When Jeff Parkin spoke of his disappointment in students of our film program for not working as hard as they should and not pushing themselves to our potential, it made me realize the importance of this, of working to gain knowledge and not just passively waiting for it.
ReplyDeleteNick, I recall the "mission-definition story" you told when we went to dinner last week. It made me smile. But beyond that, you bring up a good point--we never know when our media will touch someone else, even *gasp* a non-member.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned, and Annie commented on, the idea of "blind followers." I think an important part of future Mormon media will be to show how we are not blind followers. We should present characters who are challenged by the things that their church and beliefs expect them to do, not just the trials of life when following. That is what made Jeremiah such a compelling character; he didn't fully understand why he should do everything and he wanted to give up. He had to dig down deep inside and find his ultimate spiritual motivation in order to press forward. To bring in Melissa's post, so will we if we are to succeed spiritually in an industry that can be morally challenging.