Virtual bicycles
With almost 80 million user of YouTube out there alone, it couldn't be long before the LDS Church started organizing its members to use online video to proselytize.
Church leader M. Russell Ballard, whom I doubt has browsed much on YouTube (but I'd like to be there when he did), recently told Brigham Young University-Hawaii students that it's vital for members to wade into the online discusses of religion. The church is providing resources for members to tell their stories and the story of their religion online.
Right now, YouTube has more attacks, satires and send-ups on Mormonism than faith-promoting videos. But the church apparently hopes to change that.
But the blogoshere is a rough-and-tumble frontier, the opposite end of the spectrum from the the buttoned-down LDS faith. I can't help but wonder if this Internet mission call will lead to disciplinary actions against Mormons, who for one reason or another, put their foot in it.
It only would take one shocking or funny misinterpretation of LDS doctrine (take your pick — salamanders, golden plates, Kolob, polygamy...) to rocket around the world as a Internet myth, complete with video. Remember the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?
Ballard pointedly warned church members not present themselves as speaking officially for the Church, but that will be lost on YouTube fans.
Church leader M. Russell Ballard, whom I doubt has browsed much on YouTube (but I'd like to be there when he did), recently told Brigham Young University-Hawaii students that it's vital for members to wade into the online discusses of religion. The church is providing resources for members to tell their stories and the story of their religion online.
Right now, YouTube has more attacks, satires and send-ups on Mormonism than faith-promoting videos. But the church apparently hopes to change that.
But the blogoshere is a rough-and-tumble frontier, the opposite end of the spectrum from the the buttoned-down LDS faith. I can't help but wonder if this Internet mission call will lead to disciplinary actions against Mormons, who for one reason or another, put their foot in it.
It only would take one shocking or funny misinterpretation of LDS doctrine (take your pick — salamanders, golden plates, Kolob, polygamy...) to rocket around the world as a Internet myth, complete with video. Remember the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?
Ballard pointedly warned church members not present themselves as speaking officially for the Church, but that will be lost on YouTube fans.
1 Comments:
This is not much of a surprise. There has been an active corps of LDS editors on Wikipedia for years. They monitor all of the LDS-related articles and keep out most of the anti-Mormon rhetoric, but they can also be over-zealous when it comes to legitimate criticisms and aspects of history that the mainstream church doesn't want to discuss much.
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