When I was in Salt Lake City last week I was taken to a musical cabaret that celebrated, in song and dance, it's antagonism toward the Mormon Church. This singing vilification has been going on for 43 years. The songs are pleasant the dancing is okay and the words can be easily ignored.
A year or so ago I saw the broadway play The Book of Mormon by the South Park boys. It was flat out terrible. The word ‘flat’ goes with flatulence in this case because the entire musical was aimed at 12-year-old boys and their scatalogical world view.
To my knowledge this venom being sprayed at the Mormon Church has been ignored by the Church. I see only two reasons for this nonresponse:
* One is that the Mormon church learned from its 50 years of bitter attacks by the US government and the US Army that there is no effective response to malicious anti-religious aggression. They probably learned to just stay out of the limelight and not fight back. That is good advice since I have given that advice to half a dozen religious groups and the two or three that followed my advice still exist.
* Second, it is possible that the leaders of the Mormon Church have looked at the perpetual endurance of Judaism. It is certainly one lesson that proves having enemies attacking you helps to create a solid core of members that ensures your survival. The Mormon Church may be imitating Jews for the past 3000 years who have maintained their tradition, in its nearly original form, while under oppressive conditions that included murder, pogroms and genocide on a regular basis.
I thought about this while I listen to the anti-Mormon cabaret song and dance.