Go West, Young Religion: Mormonism on Exhibit [View all]

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A docent with visitors at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, which presents the history of the Mormon church. (Kristin Murphy for The New York Times)

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: April 22, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY — The president, according to Mormon doctrine, is literally a seer, a prophet — the president, that is, of the church. Usually American presidents have a somewhat lower reputation.

Now that Mitt Romney, an active Mormon, is aspiring to the more mundane office, new attention has come upon the faith that guides him. And much of that attention has been accompanied by controversy, confusion and concern about how Mormonism fits into American society.

For a glimpse of how Mormons see themselves, though, it’s worth visiting the Church History Museum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here. Created by believers, for believers, the museum shows how close to the center of American life Mormons consider themselves to be.

The gap is enormous between that perspective and the one embedded in the wider culture. The hit Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon” riotously mocks the church’s doctrine. The high-toned HBO soap “Big Love,” which ended last year, relished the complications of polygamy (once endorsed by the church and long since renounced). Reports of posthumous Mormon baptisms of Holocaust victims have fueled outrage. Accusations of extremism and murder appear in thrillers reaching back to Sherlock Holmes’s first case in “A Study in Scarlet.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/arts/design/in-salt-lake-city-museum-shows-how-mormons-see-themselves.html