The Mormons: A Documentary

This stained glass depicts Joseph Smith's first vision in the Sacred Grove near Palmyra, New York. According to Smith, early in the spring of 1820, he wandered out into the woods, where he encountered God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. They instructed him, Smith continues, to restore the true church on Earth. Then the story becomes less credible.

What can I say about the Mormons? Half my family traces back to the Salt Lake diaspora, and that half, believe me, takes its creed seriously. The other half comes from chronically depressed fishermen from the North Sea who believe in nothing whatsoever, so as far as I'm concerned, the two halves cancel each other out, leaving me nicely balanced and accountable neither to the gullible nor to the grim.

Frontline produced a marvellous documentary here, free from uncritical indulgence. It raises all the obvious questions, and a few that aren't so obvious, but it explores them with a delicate, lingering touch that reveals the shape of its subject without recklessly exposing it. Given their cultish secrecy of self-protection and their fantastically odd theology, Mormons invite plenty of distrust and abuse. Frontline remains sympathetic but also skeptical, and the combined measure of appreciation and concern lends a welcome heroism to their history, as well as a healthy doubt for their future.

Mature reporting on a subject I myself, being no revelator, pretend to know nothing about.