I guess I was a missionary who wasn’t pressured to baptize

(This piece was posted to the now-defunct StandardBlogs in July 2013).

Before I get into my subject, memo to Sunstone fans; the June 2013 issue is the best I have read. Every article — from letters to in-depth features, was a must-read. And filmmaker Richard Dutcher offers an excellent short story, “Expiation.” This week’s blog was partially inspired by (the now late)Tom Kimball, who once handled books at Signature. In a short, personal essay in which Kimball offers his sentiments on watching — as a former Mormon — LDS priesthood holders set apart his LDS son for a mission, he wonders what his son will be like after his mission.

This line stayed with me: “Will the numbers game that rules so many missions open his eyes to my unbelieving view of Mormonism?” The “numbers game.” I have heard accounts, by Mormons and former Mormons, of the salesmanship pressures of baptizing. The “numbers game” pressure is a fixture in contemporary Mormon-themed fiction sold outside Deseret Book. I don’t doubt there’s a “numbers game” but the concept is foreign to me because I , drum roll, never experienced it during my time as a missionary. Not from the president, the assistants, the zonies …

I served an 18-month mission (1983-1984) in the Peru Lima North mission. It was a high-baptizing mission. In the 16 months I was in the field, my companions and I averaged between 8 to 9 baptisms a month. I assume those numbers were about average in the mission. I was in Iquitos (by the Amazon River), Chiclayo, Lima and Chimbote, a city blessed with too many fish factories and seemingly no rules on pollution. In Chimbote, we were frequently assaulted with waves of fish smoke!

Note from today: (The picture above is of the Ayllon family, who myself and my senior companion, Elder Rodger Worthen, taught the Gospel to and baptized the couple. The family has remained active in the LDS. Their sweet son -- standing -- in the photo, Jorge, died a decade-plus later while on his mission. Others in the family have served missions. Rodger, God bless his soul, died in 2020.)

Of course, we were urged to gather prospects, urge a commitment to baptism during the first discussion, and baptize converts, but there was never the follow-up pressure and cheers for baptizers and scorn for non-baptizers. We knocked doors in the AM, studied for a couple of hours in the afternoon (siesta time) and in the late afternoon or evening went to appointments, or knocked doors. Knocking on doors was not a difficult thing to do. I can only recall two occasions when the door was shut in our face.

Recreation was treasured in my mission. We’d get up at 6 am on Mondays to make our Preparation Day as long as possible. My fondest memories are in in Lima, by the Tupac Amaru highway, climbing the hills, early in the morning, in the outskirts of Lima. Near Chiclayo we once visited, via truck, a place sacred to Catholics, called The Cross of Chalpon. There were dozens of these types of trips. They relieved the tension that accompanies 12-hour missionary days six days a week.

On Monday night, there was zone meeting. We reviewed the week, went over procedures, congratulated missionaries on baptisms. But again, no pressure. I wonder if my mission’s easygoing style was due to the numbers of baptisms already being logged? Or was it the strategy of my mission president, an easygoing Idaho farmer named Harvard Bitter. I never saw anything other than good humor from him, and that includes the rare personal visits.

In fact, the “worst” thing that ever happened on my mission was when I was robbed at the Chimbote taxi stop upon arrival there. The casualties were my scriptures, about $70 cash, some Peruvian money, a key chain collection, and the big loss, my mission diary which had logged 15 months of my mission. I hated losing that. I put an ad in the paper, with a reward promised for its return and no questions asked, but maybe the robbers didn’t read the daily paper. (In subsequent weeks I was bemused to see parts of my not inconsiderable key chain collection for sale by street vendors at various locations.)

Warning: Very long sentence follows — Although I realize that my mission diary likely decomposed long ago in a landfill — is it possible that destroyed mission diaries are resurrected in the hereafter? — I still harbor a hope that it’s sitting in some members’ house and that one day, through the magic of social media — which definitely did not exist back then … we weren’t even able to watch LDS conference — I will be reunited with my mission diary, thereby having an absolutely fantastic spiritual anecdote the next time I’m tapped to give a talk in sacrament meeting.

Well, I have digressed from my original topic of not being pressured to baptize. As mentioned, to the best of my memory, I never felt the pressure others describe (even now my Standard Works colleague Cal Grondahl is telling me he was pressured to baptize in his 1969 to 1971 New Zealand mission). The only time I felt harassed was due to an overenthusiastic assistant who was a stickler for rules and was hassling me one day. I exchanged a few sharp words with him, which probably ended my faint hopes of becoming a zone leader. I was a district leader the final eight months of my mission, and was always given responsibilities over sister missionaries. My leadership skills could be summed up as follows: Work hard, and don’t baptize kids unless there’s a member parent or member adult sibling. One overly enthusiastic sister missionary used to complain about my “standards” to President Bitter (I read news magazines and boxing magazines) but the prez just laughed them off. (To be fair, I also polished off the “Book of Mormon” a few times, “Jesus the Christ,” the “Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt,” the “Articles of Faith,” and “Orgullo y Prejucio” (“Pride and Prejudice”), which I picked up in a Chiclayo bookstore.)

This stream of consciousness piece is about over. There’s another article in the current Sunstone, by Scot Denhalter, who ironically was in my mission area several-plus years before I got there. In “The Persistent Impermanence of Memory,” Denhalter argues that our memories may not be what actually occurred. As Denhalter writes, “… as the mind retrieves the raw data of memory for the first time, details needed to establish the logical coherence of the memory’s retelling — details not originally stored or possibly never perceived — can be unconsciously added, while seemingly unnecessary details can be left out or likely lost forever.”

I guess it’s possible my memories are skewed. Maybe I was pressured to baptize. But I doubt it.

-- Doug Gibson

Is it DeMille, Spielberg or Jackson who wants to direct a movie on Alma?

(Originally published in 2010 on StandardBlogs)

A lifetime of activity in the LDS Church provides more than just an average acquaintance with “The Pearl of Great Price.” You become very well versed in the urban legends of Mormonism. One of the favorite urban legends I heard growing up in Southern California LDS wards was that the late, great director Cecil B. DeMille (“The 10 Commandments”) wanted to make a movie about the Book of Alma in “The Book of Mormon.”

If you’ve never heard of Cecil B. DeMille, that’s OK. In the last couple generation or so, I’ve heard a variation on the DeMille/Alma story. It’s actually the great, living director Steven Spielberg who wants to make a movie based on the book of Alma. If you haven’t heard of Spielberg, maybe in 10 years it will be director Peter Jackson who wants to Alma on the big screen?

The only big-screen film version of “The Book of Mormon” I’ve seen is the low-budget, really bad “Book of Mormon Movie Part I,” which should have been subtitled “Beach Blanket Lehi” for all its depth. True confession: I own that film, and have watched it a few times. The dialogue is so bad that I have a hard time believing that my church would have wanted the production company to make the film. I guess that means perhaps that “The Book of Mormon” is in the public domain, like other classics such as Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” or George A. Romero’s film “Night of the Living Dead.” That must be the reason so many cheap cartoonish versions of Alma are available through Living Scriptures, Liken the Scriptures or the LDS Church Distribution Center.

Back to Mormon urban legends: There used to be a fun website that tried to decipher all the Mormon legends out there. The site no longer exists so I won't mention its name. It did not get them all, since there was no listing for DeMille, Spielberg, Alma, etc., but the site claimed an answer to the big “is Alice Cooper a Mormon” debate. I’ve been hearing this one since I was old enough to know who Alice Cooper was. The answer, according to the site was  … a sort of yes. You see Cooper, whose real name is Vincent Furnier, has a dad named Ether Moroni. With a name like that, right … RIGHT. The Furniers belong to an obscure Mormon castoff sect called The Bickertonite Church, also known as The Church of Christ. The church claims The Book of Mormon as its own scripture.

There’s very few members of this “Mormon” church, and I doubt Cooper attends, but dad Ether Moroni was alleged to be an elder in the Bickertonites and, get this, the defunct site said Cooper’s grandad was an apostle in The Bickertonite Church. Now that’s a religious pedigree to be proud of!

There were more questions answered on the site. You "found out" if Elvis read “The Book of Mormon” or if the late LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball was the model for “Star Wars’” Yoda.

-- Doug Gibson

All those Mormons who think R-rated films are taboo are wrong

 

Originally posted in 2009 at StandardBlogs

A couple of years ago my oldest daughter’s accelerated fifth-grade class viewed a film version of the well-regarded novel, “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” which involves a contemporary girl being thrust back in time into the horror of the Holocaust. I was thrilled she had a teacher motivated enough to teach her and others about the Holocaust. Unfortunately, some parents of other students in the class protested and initiated a crusade against the teacher, who was more or less suspended for several days. The parents were enabled by milquetoast district administrators who in my opinion mostly took their embarrassing side. What’s most interesting is that a key argument against the teacher was that she had shown an “R” rated movie. She hadn’t, of course. “The Devil’s Arithmetic” is a TV movie. When I informed an involved party that the film was not R-rated, he seemed very surprised. It was clear the non-existent “R” rating was a big deal.

OK, had an R-rated film been shown to fifth-graders, that would have been a big deal. The irony, though, is among much of the Mormon culture, an R-rated film about the Holocaust would not be tolerated for any ages — are we thinking “Schindler’s List” here? What about the crucifixion? “The Passion of the Christ” is a powerful, well-acted, deeply moving film. Trust me, it’s a much better, more spiritual, more faith-promoting film than the good-hearted “The Testaments.” But I know of an LDS ecclesiastical leader who told his congregation to not see the movie because it was R-rated. I have tried to convince friends who are, like myself, faithful members of the LDS church to see “The Passion of the Christ.” Some have looked at me like I’m the devil trying to tempt Christ to break his fast.

There are many R-rating spurners who are sincere, and avoid all films that cross a moral and personal line that they have set for themselves. I respect that. However, just about every week there are released into theaters PG or PG-13 rated comedy or light drama films with characters and events that are specifically sexual in nature and cast fornication or adultery in a positive light. Many of these films — “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Broadcast News,” “Mamma Mia” — are well-acted, well-produced films. I certainly won’t condemn anyone who enjoys spending two hours escaping real-life watching the films. Those three films, in fact, are among my favorites. My point is that 99 percent of my LDS friends who object to “The Passion of the Christ” don’t object to the PG-13 film at the cineplex; in fact, most have probably watched it.

Look, life is R-rated, and while I admit there’s little of R-rated life I’d want to see on the screen there are subjects, historical, religious or personal, that need an R rating to be effectively told. I know they covered deep subjects well in tame films generations ago, but we were a tamer society then. We laud old films such as “The Good Earth” and “Elmer Gantry” as classics but don’t realize until we read the novels that all the R-rated parts were taken out. A high priest in a former ward once scoffed at my respect for “The Godfather” films. “Edward G. Robinson did it better than Al Pacino, and you can take the family to see the film,” was what he more or less said. Well, I’m a big admirer of Robinson’s sneer, but “The Godfather” is a superb parable of capitalism run amok. It may be the greatest epic tale told on the screen. I’m glad I was able to introduce the trilogy to my wife, who loved the films.

In the past 20-plus years, a myth has grown within the LDS church that members are not supposed to watch any R-rated movies. It’s nonsense. It stems from a speech given by the late prophet Ezra Taft Benson, who advised LDS teenagers to avoid R-rated films. Writer Orson Scott Card, while defending “The Passion of the Christ” in a column, recounted what President Benson actually said: “We counsel you, young men, not to pollute your minds with such degrading matter, for the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards. Don’t see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. Don’t listen to music that is degrading.” (Ensign, May 1986, p 43)

That makes perfect sense for the youth of the LDS church. They should avoid films such as “Porky’s.” And most R-rated films are not meant for children. But, as Card points out, there is nothing about “The Passion of the Christ” that fits what Benson was warning youth about. Clearly, “immoral, suggestive, or pornographic” entertainment is what we are warned against, not R-rated films.

I don’t expect the myth of R-rated films to ever really go away. I know a family member who promised Heavenly Father a long time ago that she would stop watching R-rated movies. I’m sure He appreciates the gesture, although He’s probably a fan of “Braveheart.”

-- Doug Gibson

More Cal Grondahl Standard Works cartoons

Here's another sample of Cal Grondahl's Standard Works cartoons, done over a several-year period, roughly about 2009 to early 2014. A website change ended the site (except for Wayback), but these were saved at Flickr and Facebook. We use them on the Culture of Mormonism blog. Enjoy! 

100-plus years ago, Charles W. Penrose also explained why he is a Mormon

 

(Editor's note: this blog was published 10 years ago at StandardNet. I rescued it from Wayback. My faith has moved away from calling itself "Mormons." Leaders prefer we use the full-term, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm a Mormon site ended in 2018. Of course it was never a dating site; it just seemed like one. I still like Elder Penrose's far earlier effort at telling us about why he's a Latter-day Saint.)

At the I'm a Mormon website, this beautiful 30-something strawberry reddish/blonde named Rochelle is smiling at me … for a few seconds. A click on her profile indicates she’s a married Mormon mom from Texas. I imagine that Rochelle is soon ignored by the scores of thousands of single men, mostly Mormon, who peruse the social media chat site “I’m a Mormon” — as do the many single women who likely pass on 25-34 married man, Todd.

A social media site to connect Mormons across the globe is an obvious cybercentury tool. But it’s not being cynical to also see “I’m a Mormon” as a dating site trove for lonely church members. It’s designed to look like one. Users can peruse any gender preference. I type in Female, African-American, 25-34 and find Lydia, Jewel, Laney and dozens more just waiting for a click. There’s a lot of information shared but the dating site analogy only goes so far. There’s no body measurements or described “turn-ons.”

I’ve had enough of “I’m a Mormon.” I’d have a tough time explaining my interest if my wife caught me perusing the site. Besides, I really belong on the 35 to 49-age webpages. (Today I'm 58, and still happily married).

However, “I-am-a-Mormon” efforts are not without precedence in the LDS Church. They’ve just been more staid in the past. I’m perusing a very yellowed, torn 110-year-old pamphlet, “Why I Am a Mormon,” written by President Charles W. Penrose. Published by the missions (all 10) located in North America, begins with the same fussing about calling LDS members “Mormons” that was heard recently at General Conference. Penrose writes, “To call them ‘Mormons,’ therefore, is as nonsensical as it would be to call them Jeremiahs or Daniels. Peters or Paul.” Penrose adds that he regards as “Mormonism” as “vulgarly” used by his faith’s opponents.

There’s a good bet that was true in 1901, and Penrose is a good sport to tell the gentile world why he’s a Mormon. I have a great deal of affection for this tract — given to me as a family heirloom by a woman who died shortly after I received it. It’s an unapologetic, no evasions tolerated defense of the Gospel. It can be bought — old or new editions — at amazon and elsewhere.

Penrose’s main argument is that Mormonism “is the only religious system that professes to have been established by direct divine authority.” He’s blunt about the divine failures of other religions, including Catholicism, Episcopalism, or those of the Protestant Reformation. He writes, “They are the works of men. It matters not whether their founders were good or bad. God had no direct hand in their establishment for the men who made them did not believe in present revelation. To their minds, Deity was dumb to the world.”

Penrose uses the old-fashioned term, “Romish” church to draw a geneaogy of all then-current U.S. churches, drawing a comparison with his claim that the Mormon Church was a restored version of the New Testament gospel.

Midway into the pamphlet, Penrose delves into sharp theological differences that the LDS Church has with other religions, describing the distinctions as a positive that solves the dilemma of human existence. In sometimes confusing parlance, the LDS doctrines of pre-existence, eternal intelligences, and the potential for Godhood are hinted at.

He writes, “Man is capable of advancement into higher spheres until the divinity within him by birth is developed into the fullness of the Godhead, and he becomes one with the Father and Son.”

The latter portions of the tract explains — to the uninitiated — the outlines of eternal marriage and the importance of The Book of Mormon as latter-day Scripture. Penrose is both blunt, “A woman cannot enter into the fullness of celestial glory in a single state, neither can a man” (thus the interest in today’s mormon.org, perhaps?) and a bit of an early feminist, writing, “She (woman) is an independent member of the Church, with a vote equal to a man’s on all public questions.” (the world “public” is significant, however). The Book of Mormon, besides being lauded as being “in perfect accord with the Bible,” is used as a challenge for investigators who may be squeamish about other aspects of the LDS Church. Penrose writes, “If the Book of Mormon is true, ‘Mormonism’ is true. It is a question I heard growing up and still hear often in church meetings.

The final two sections are testimonies of the Prophet Joseph Smith and a personal testimony of how Mormonism satisfies Penrose’s “every human need.”

Whether a believer in the LDS Church or not, Penrose’s pamphlet is compelling reading. It’s persuasive religious propaganda, direct, to-the-point and delivers answers to eternal questions that dwell within most persons’ hearts. Works such as “Why I Am a Mormon,” as well as many other efforts, are the reason the LDS Church grew from strange, very unpopular cultish sect into a global religion with more than 10 million members.

Although the banal, virtually non-doctrinal, attractive faces/social media “I’m a Mormon” campaign may have its place in a digital world, I can’t help thinking that it would appall Penrose — who died 96 years ago — if he rose from the dead and witnessed it today.

-- Doug Gibson

Interview with authors of Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism

This interview was conducted in August of 2011, soon after the publication of the biography, Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, (reviewed by me here.) For various factors, it ended up in Wayback purgatory. It is now available at the Culture of Mormonism blog. I appreciate the input from authors Terryl Givens and Matthew J. Grow. Below is the 2011 post:

As Political Surf readers know, I mentioned the new biography of early Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt, “Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism,” Oxford University Press, 2011, by Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow, in a previous blog that dealt with Pratt’s death (read). I will be reviewing the biography soon in the print edition of The Standard-Examiner. However, I had the opportunity to ask the authors, Givens and Grow, some questions about Pratt, his contemporaries, and the biography. The results are below:

Q: Did Pratt view his calling in life as an apostle to be as the apostles in the Book of Acts, such as as receiving visions, being persecuted or martyred, as Stephen, performing miracles, debating disbelievers, gathering and counseling members, and preaching without recompense and living in poverty?

A:  There is no doubt that Pratt saw his calling as an apostle as consistent with the New Testament pattern of apostleship. He was a fervent restorationist, was convinced that Joseph Smith had received the authority and keys necessary to restore the kingdom of God, and personally experienced those spiritual gifts such as healing that he believed were sure evidence of an authentic restoration. His willingness to leave his family behind time and again to preach the gospel at  home and in foreign lands, and suffer persecution and imprisonment for the gospel’s sake, was in part a consequence of the office he held and the biblical precedent of apostolic sacrifice and martyrdom.

Q: As a premillennialist, did Pratt have any theories as to a particular time Christ was going to return. Would he have been amazed that Christ had not returned by 2011?

A: Pratt’s millennial expectations preceded his conversion to Mormonism, but found particular focus and support from two events. First was his exposure to the Book of Mormon itself-Isaiah’s “ensign to the nations.”  Second was its reinforcement of his personal interest in the spiritual destiny of the American Indians. In light of Book of Mormon prophecies, he read the Indian Removal Act of 1830 as a providential episode that heralded the gathering of that segment of Israel, and was convinced the Second Coming was accordingly imminent. Smith’s announcement of the city of Zion to be built further confirmed him in his sense that he was living on the cusp of millennial events. The failure to realize the promise of Zion in Missouri was devastating to Pratt, as it was to thousands of his co-religionists.

Q: Pratt’s books and pamphlets, although rarely discussed today, are so much a part of Mormonism’s deepest beliefs. Did these emulate mostly from his private talks with Joseph Smith or from his personal study? And did he ever run into conflict on his published doctrine with Brigham Young, as his brother Orson often did?

A: Because so little is recorded of Smith’s Kirtland teachings and personal interactions with other leaders, it is impossible to know how much of Pratt’s writing was directly derivative of Smith’s ideas, and how much was Pratt’s own extrapolation and elaboration of seeds he garnered from Smith and his revelations. Most likely, it was both. Smith did on one occasion complain that Pratt and other “great big elders” were passing off his ideas as their own. Some later editions of Pratt’s writings had portions edited out, but we found no evidence of Young criticizing any particular ideas of his.  Rather, Young recommended Pratt’s writings to others.

Q: Did Brigham Young like Parley P. Pratt? An earlier biography of Pratt (Stanley) claimed the prophet disliked him and kept him away via constant missions?

A: In general, Young and Pratt seem to have had a good relationship, though there were moments of tension and conflict.  For instance, during the trek west, Young rebuked Pratt over several issues related to authority and organization of the trek west.  In general, though, Young respected Pratt for his preaching and literary talents, as well as his willingness and ability to take on difficult tasks like the Southern Utah Expedition, and Pratt accepted Young as his quorum president (and later Church president) and looked to him for guidance and advice.

Q: Regarding Pratt’s murder, do you think he wished to be a martyr or had resigned himself to dying when he left the Van Buren jail?

A: The last years of Pratt’s life were marked by disappointment in the millennium deferred, and in the failure of the Saints to attain the high standards expected of them. (Their unwillingness to generously support his missionary endeavors was one factor in that perception). He missed his family terribly during his missions, and was worn out emotionally and physically. In his final days, he refused to take precautions to defend himself against the man thirsting for his blood, and certainly met his death with uncommon equanimity.

Q: What are some unanswered questions about Parley P. Pratt that are still left to be discovered by historians?

A: One important question relates to your question 3. How much of a role did Pratt have as a catalyst to Joseph Smith’s own expansion of his ideas, especially in regard to human theosis, which Pratt discussed in print long before the King Follett discourse? Another question might be the enduring theological legacy of Pratt’s works. How did Pratt’s books, especially Voice of Warning and Key to the Science of Theology, shape Mormon thought throughout the nineteenth century and the twentieth (and indeed to the present)?

-- Interview by Doug Gibson

The Home Teachers -- Mormonism's best bad movie

 

The competition’s tough, but “The Home Teachers” is Mormonism’s Best Worst Movie!

After watching “Best Worst Movie,” the film homage to the deliriously bad “Troll 2,” I got to thinking: What is the best worst LDS movie — the one so bad that it makes you squirm but you still like enough to put in the DVD player a couple of times a year?

The battle’s fierce. Among the contenders are:

• “Book of Mormon Movie,” where the actors’ age with salt n pepper hair but no facial lines.

• “Charly” where viewers wish star Heather Beers would reject all the dreary men in her life.

• “Beauty and the Beast,” where bad acting is mixed with cinematography and sets more often used in soft-core porn.

• And “The RM,” where love occurs in a montage with bad music.

But “The Home Teachers” gets my vote for the best of the worst. Directed by Kurt Hale, the 2004 Halestorm film takes a subject that could have been softly parodied for a few chuckles and instead turns it into a road movie featuring a poor imitation of a Chris Farley, David Spade buddy film.

The Farley character is family man/football fanatic Greg Blazer (Michael Birkeland), who just wants to get home from church and watch NFL football. Unfortunately, he’s corralled by the Spade character, Nelson Parker (Jeff Birk), his anal retentive home teaching companion, who insists they get all their families visited even if it requires a three-hour drive across the state.

Birkeland is the better actor, but he’s no Chris Farley. He whines instead of creating pathos and his voice is a monotone. His one talent, physical comedy, makes the film watchable. My children howl with laughter during an otherwise appalling home teaching scene where Birkeland’s Blazer destroys the home of a down on their luck family. There is another, funnier Farleyesque scene where Birkeland ends up doing the “tango” with a corpse during a funeral viewing. And my kids scream with laugher when Birkeland, with a deer head over his head, runs frantically away from stupid hunters.

Birk’s obsessive compulsive “Nelson Parker” is very bizarre. He looks more like Ben Stiller than David Spade and he acts nothing like Spade. Although intended to inspire comedy, Parker is very creepy with his steely grin and troubled eyes. There were times I thought Parker might physically attack his home teaching companion. When, near the end of the film, Parker admits that his unseen wife has left him, I was relieved; I’d been worried he’d killed her for unfaithfulness.

With Birkeland’s comedy, Birk’s creepiness and jazzed-up LDS songs, the film remains very bad, save for a too-small performance by the always-talented LDS actress Tayva Patch as a criminal’s moll. (Patch died in 2015). There are cameos by celebrity Jimmy Chunga and baseball player Wally Joyner. The film has the usual let’s-wrap-it-up-with-a-spiritual-experience scene accompanied by familiar montage music and all ends well — even creepy Nelson wins his wife back!

After the credits, there’s a bizarre scene where the home teacher visits Fred Lampropoulos. He talks a mile a minute to them amidst a home decorated with his campaign signs. It’s a weird time capsule — Lampropolous failed in a Utah gubernatorial bid in 2004. It seems way out of place in this already goofy film until you notice that one of the film’s associate producers (investors?) is another Lampropoulos.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published in 2009 at StandardBlogs.