I just watched part of the PBS program on Mormonism. Two thoughts are sticking in my head:

1) None of us will live to see it, but I wonder how the religion will change with time. Some of its traits seem like those of other young religions (100-300 years old): its missionary zeal (see the history of Manichaeism and many Protestant sects), its sense of ill-ease with discussions about its secret, sacred things and its origins (see early Christianity, especially the Church Fathers' defensiveness about Christ's incarnation and the Eucharist), its sense of still finding its footing in the community of religions and sorting out how to talk about itself to those who are neither within its fold nor potential converts, and what its relationship is with the academic study of itself (a new scholarly field which has yet to sort out its own identity, either.)

All young religions (not just Mormonism) have to square with the fact that they will not achieve universal conversion and that they will have to coexist (on some kind of terms) with non-them neighbors. All young religions have to accept that they will not have total control over their public image, and that the broader world will at times be curious, challenging, rude, full of misinformation (willful or innocent...), and it will laugh at things the religion doesn't find funny.

The wider world does things that infuriate every religion: it sometimes shrugs at the fact of former persecution and it does not always regard solemnly the things a particular religion takes seriously.

Older religions tend to have a degree of shrugging off (and one way or another not minding) these goads; younger religions tend to react like doused cats.

2) I wish the PBS documentary had been less polite. Not less respectful - less polite. It avoided describing what occurs in Mormon Temples, when (purported) descriptions of those rites are all over the internet. (This is not really a new phenomenon - the internet is new, but tracts, pamphlets, exposes, soap boxes, sermons, and rumors are not.) This subject cannot be put back in the bag or left to the religion's theological detractors and (sometimes unhappy) ex-members. I can only point to the tack taken by some older religions (Judaism, Zoroastrianism) - they do their best to educate, to inculcate respect, and to be good people to the degree that others cannot mind whatever they imagine (or know) the specifics of that religion to be.

Also, Mormonism Studies (and Religion Studies in general) must be able to discuss holy secrets, be they a set of doctrines, rituals, words, symbols. The work of understanding a tradition (in all its aspects, including its theology, architecture, ritual, art...), of researching its history and influences (all religions have influences, even though it is common for religions to claim they do not), of comparing it to its predecessors and contemporaries, of understanding its schisms, choices, and policies - all of this depends on openness. Scholars of good conscience will never willfully insult a religion or cut it down,* but like a doctor they must be able to see and have access to everything in order to do their work. Scholarship cannot be a branch of apologetics, either - it cannot be an arm of any religion, nor can it  do the work of spreading or promoting a particular tradition. I can't think of a religion that isn't (at times) offended or uncomfortable with aspects of scholarship on itself - but that is the price of free speech and the free exchange of ideas.

* To pick a silly example:

Insult: "The Silver Call Duology is a second-rate ripoff of The Lord of the Rings! It sucks!"

Respect: "The Silver Call Duology was deeply influenced by The Lord of the Rings, and one can see the author thinking about - and even playing with - ideas and elements of J. R. R.Tolkien's trilogy which evidently inspired and moved him."

[Flamecatcher: Until very recently The Lord of the Rings was always published as three separate books. I have read The History of Middle-Earth and The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and I know the exigencies that originally caused it to be published this way, against Tolkien's wishes. If the publisher's divisions upset you so terribly, you are welcome to refer to the Roman numeraled books that Tolkien divided the work into.]

-Kushana