Yes, Beck left the church; yes, she feels she tells the truth about the LDS church. I wonder, what are the Mormons, the “average Mormons”, to do with those hundreds (if not thousands) of women who were alledgedly abused? Should they seek them out to offer their Saintly help and love? Should they shun them? It seems to me that whatever the “average Mormon” should do with Beck and her book, he or she needs to do in equall veracity to any Mormon (ex or otherwise) that claims sexual (or any other type) abuse by a trusted member of the LDS church. Don’t defend the Man because he tells you to, defend Him because he is worthy to be defended. If you’re doing that, then at least you have your integrity. If you sacrifice your integrity then you are worth nothing to anyone — you’ve become the eqivelant to a whore: repulsed by both those who use her and those who do not.

Milton, Aeropagitica.

Forwarding the email is a bad idea because I have found that almost every email I have gotten calling me to action has been guilty of falsehood or perpetuating an urban legend, like Pepsi’s alleged campaign to take the words “under God” out of the pledge of allegiance, so we should stop drinking Pepsi. Incidentally, I have received the Martha Beck email you refer to, and it unnecessarily stretches the truth in a few places. I can’t imagine that Martha Beck really wrote that death squads from church headquarters still exist. How would she explain the fact that the Tanners are still alive? If she did write about the death squads existing, I imagine that even the most rapid antis will have issues with her credibility.

My approach is to talk about it if people ask me about it. Most people know that “recovered memories” are B.S., so with that aspect of the book, I think it should be easy enough to discredit the whole book. But who knows what kind of effect Oprah will have on this whole process.

Krakauer’s book was more challenging because his approach seemed pretty well intentioned and well documented.

Here’s the response I sent about the email campaign to members of my ward who called us to “combat Satan’s influence” by writing to Oprah.

>Not to discourage people’s good intentions, but it is unlikely that any level of public outcry will thwart Oprah’s plans to endorse Martha’s book. If anything, an extensive email campaign will increase the interest already circling around it. If promoting Martha and her book promises to be controversial, then that’s good for Oprah’s show, so writing myriads of email, whether plaintive or outraged, will do nothing more than fan the flames of scandal and intrigue.

Of course, Martha’s angry, agenda-driven book is full of preposterous claims. But, Martha has become a well-liked figure in our psycho-babbling popular culture (as her regular column in O attests) and so her book is guaranteed to be national bestseller overnight regardless of what we’d prefer.

It will, therefore, be ineffectual, to deluge the Oprah studios with letters of protest. A better response is to buy and carefully read Leaving the Saints so that you are armed with more accurate information when people ask you about it, as they certainly will.

If you still feel strongly that you personally must write a letter to Oprah, do not suggest that she withdraw her endoresement of the book as this will likely be wasted effort. Instead, suggest to her that she invite a scholar of Mormonism to appear on her show with Martha to counter or, at least complexify whatever Martha might say about the Church. This suggestion is unlikely to be considered since Martha’s book is a personal essay and not a scholarly work, but it may be worth a shot. At least a more balanced discussion could occur in such a scenario. Better yet, suggest that she invite Dr. Phil on with Martha to throw some cynicism on those “recovered” memories.

One thing more to remember—-Martha not only left the Church many years ago, she also left academia. That means that although her book will get lots of popular press, it will be largely ignored by the academy since it is not rigorous in any scholarly way. Martha’s book would have been much more damaging had she used her training as a sociologist to attack the church in an underhanded way. The good news is that a salacious expose like this simply won’t be taken seriously by the meaning-making intellectuals (historians, sociologists, philosophers, theologians, and so forth) in this country. In the end, the book is more about Martha then it is about Mormonism.

“than” not “then”

Who would be a good candidate to suggest to Oprah as an alternate viewpoint? Someone who is not a member but has studied the church? I would guess that even some people who are considered anti-mormon but know the church well would think the accusations in the book are out of left field.

Totally – right – on.

This book will get coverage anyway, but just to emphasize a point that Steve brings out — journalists who might not cover the book, will, however, cover the book if it becomes clear that it’s part of a ‘major’ controversy that is the subject of an organized campaign against it.

In other words, you often get two rounds of coverage:

Round 1: publicity for the book — often reviews and interviews with the author. Usually generated by the publisher — pitches and press releases and sending out review copies.

Round 2 (and this coverage is usually spread across more papers — esp. if the wire services pick up on the story): stories about the controversy the book is causing.