While it was heartening to read that Lucy Mangan found those featured in the documentary The Mormons Are Coming to be “lovely – gentle, kind, sincere” (TV review, 28 February), her comment that they were “fill[ing] people’s emotional voids with their lies” attempted to perpetuate the derogatory caricature that Mormons are hapless simpletons.
The review took aim at what Mangan termed “the essential absurdity” of Joseph Smith’s claim to have received ancient records from an angel. I doubt such remarks would be used to describe Moses before the burning bush, or Gabriel’s appearance to the prophet Muhammad.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is routinely ridiculed. While it patiently waits to be treated by media outlets with a semblance of the respect afforded to other religious groups, its members will continue in their efforts to follow Christ’s example, by being “lovely – gentle, kind, sincere”.
George Fahey
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
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