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We watched part 1 as a family last night. For those who missed it, they started off discussing the interactions between Jesuit priests and Pueblo Native Americans. It then continued through the Puritans, religion’s effect on the Revolutionary War, and religious revivals in the 1800’s, although Joseph Smith and the LDS church was mentioned only briefly. I’d like to start an open thread discussing the series and seeing what others think about it. One thing that struck me while watching the series was the frequent clashes between authoritarian clerics and new preachers claiming that direct revelation from God was the way. This was reminiscent of Elder Oak’s conference talk. Our church seems to favor a hybrid approach to a point, although I think the brethren ultimately favor priesthood authority as the final word. It occurred to me while watching this series that this is not a new problem by any means. I suspect it’s not a struggle that’s unique to our faith either.
Overall, I thought the series was outstanding. My daughter started asking questions about faith and God and it gave us a chance to have some discussions with her. The series will be running tonight and tomorrow, and I’d highly recommend watching it.
Do you know if it is available for viewing on the PBS website? Does this show do a segment on the Mormons? I am watching it right now and they mentioned Joseph Smith once in terms of the Second Great Awakening, but I certainly hope there is more. Any show about God in America can hardly leave out the Mormons. Will be watching to check. Well, it turns out that they only mentioned Joseph Smith twice and ignored the Mormons, for the most part. They did the same with the Christian Scientists and the Jehovah Witnesses, so not sure what the reasoning was. I think it is a disgrace, nonetheless. I am a professor of history and was considering purchasing this dvd to use in my classes, but now will not. It is really unforgivable to leave any of these sects out of a historical analysis of God in America, i.e., religion in America. Too bad. If they didn’t spend any time on the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian Scientists, who did they actually talk about? Did they talk about 7th Day Adventists? They’re related to the JW’s, but are larger and more mainstream.
Brian Johnston wrote:If they didn’t spend any time on the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian Scientists, who did they actually talk about?
They mentioned the rise of Islam, Hinduism and other “non-traditional” religions during the last hour of the third night. They also mentioned the struggles of Jews in overcoming prejudice around the turn of the last century and the rise of Atheism and Agnosticism around the mid-20th century. But I felt the lion’s share of the focus was on Protestantism, and Evangelicals in particular. Probably because they’ve consistently been the largest faith group throughout the history of America and have had the most research done on them.
I was a little disappointed that we were only briefly mentioned twice. Someone who knew little of the LDS faith wouldn’t know any more by watching this series. But what little we got was more than Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, and Seventh Day Adventists, who weren’t mentioned at all as far as I can tell.
With that in mind, I still thought it was a very well done series that provoked a lot of religious discussion among my children and gave us a chance to talk as a family about what we believe and how it compares to the beliefs of others.
I liked this series a lot. I checked it out from the library and watched it recently. The part I liked best was the part about politics and religion. It spoke volumes to me about the parties and their usage of religion to get what they want. Each party (but especially the one I used to belong to, ha!) tends to think they have the moral high ground. It’s ugly. I appreciated learning the history of that.
Cindi wrote:I liked this series a lot. I checked it out from the library and watched it recently.
The part I liked best was the part about politics and religion. It spoke volumes to me about the parties and their usage of religion to get what they want. Each party (but especially the one I used to belong to, ha!) tends to think they have the moral high ground. It’s ugly. I appreciated learning the history of that.
Me also. I really enjoyed the series, and learned a lot.HiJolly
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