Gazing over the media horizon, three news item caught the attention of the Mormon Media Observer: the bridge building between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints, the sleazy Mormon moms calendar and a view of the church from a South African journalist.

There is a fascinating article in Christianity Today about efforts to build bridges between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints. Under the headline "Most Improbable Dialog," writer Richard Ostling chronicles the efforts by some BYU professors and Evangelicals to engage in interfaith discussion:

"Not many years ago, evangelicals would have deemed substantive contact with Mormonism equally improbable. Yet since 2000, small scholarly teams of Mormons led by (Robert) Millet and evangelical teams led by Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw have managed to hold 17 intense, closed-door dialogue sessions. The latest, held in mid-October at Wheaton College, centered on proselytism, a topic on which the two sides are intense rivals. Millet said this is the only ongoing doctrinal dialogue with any outside religious group that occurs with the knowledge -- though not yet public authorization, much less participation -- of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' top leaders, whom Millet advises on ecumenical strategy."

A retreat from virtue

The popular LDS-related news story last week was the "Hot Mormon Muffins" calendar. It made news around the country, like this report from Idaho television station KTVB. Most Latter-day Saints responding to the calendar said the models weren't dressed modestly and didn't represent the values of the church. Calendar promoters said they'll give proceeds to a breast-cancer charity. So that must make it OK? The media will mock (see this example). I say go ahead. Mormons don't need to apologize for their standards. So here's my modest proposal:

Don't buy the calendar, instead give a donation to breast-cancer research and have the youths watch this video on virtue and read the talk. These are not out-of-date ideas.

Report from South Africa

The Pretoria News carried a recent report from a journalist who visited Salt Lake City during general conference. The report emphasized the humanitarian efforts of the church:

"At the LDS's semi-annual general conference in Salt Lake City this month, church president Thomas Monson called on the 25,000 delegates to seek out those in need and to help them. Every year the LDS sends thousands of missionaries to countries around the world, where they volunteer their services to make the lives of others better. Hundreds of full-time volunteers with skills and experience in education, agriculture, social work, business, and medicine serve throughout the world as part of the church's humanitarian projects. In 2008, members of the church donated over 1.1 million days of labour to help those in need.

"In South Africa and the rest of Africa, the LDS provides help through its charity organisation called Helping Hands. In everything they do, the LDS is guided by the philosophy of, among others, its founder Joseph Smith. Smith said as long as the church had resources, it had a duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide for the widow and dry up the tear of the orphan. Smith said the LDS should assist everyone, whether they were members of his church, other churches; even when they belonged to no church at all. It is in this spirit that the LDS, in providing a helping hand, has worked with other churches. ... They have collaborated with, among others, the Catholic Relief Services to distribute relief to Ethiopia and many other countries around the world. The LDS is able to execute its mission because it is a very well-run and managed church. It is one of the U.S.'s biggest landowners. Its relief missions are run better than most corporates and governments around the world."