Reviews of The Book of Mormon musical have been all over the entertainment media in the past few weeks, Michael Otterson writes in the Washington Post's On Faith blog yesterday.Mr Otterson, who is managing director of the Public Affairs Department of the Church, acknowledges that dealing with parody and satire is "always a tricky thing for churches."
He writes: "We can easily appear thin-skinned or defensive, and churches sometimes are. A few members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have seen this musical and blogged about it seem to have gone out of their way to show how they can take it. That's their choice. There's always room for different perspectives, and we can all decide what to do with our free time."
But then he wonders what The Church of Jesus Christ was really doing in Africa during the seven years that the musical's creators took to produce The Book of Mormon. It was far removed from the depiction that "religion moves along oblivious to real-world problems in a kind of blissful naiveté."
The full Washington Post blog post can be read here.
The Church gave an official response to the musical earlier this year and has published a series showing various aspects of the Church in Africa.