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Another note, inspired by John W .\u00a0Welch,\u00a0et\u00a0al., eds.,\u00a0Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True<\/em> (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017), and very relevant to the two Interpreter articles that I mentioned in my blog entry for last Friday<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Is It to Speak with the Tongue of Angels?\u201d \u00a0(143-145)<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n 2 Nephi 32:2 seems to suggest an implicit doctrine of human deification in the Book of Mormon \u2014 a text from which, critics have alleged, the Nauvoo-period teaching of human exaltation is wholly absent.<\/span><\/p>\n To this, I would add 3 Nephi 28:10, where the Nephite disciples are promised that \u201cye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are\u00a0one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In an analogy to the transitive property of equivalence known from mathematics \u2014 according to which, if a=b and b=c, it follows necessarily that a=c \u2014 if the disciples will be like the Son, and the Son is like the Father, the disciples will be like the Father.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If one is in just the right mood, the Peterson Obsession Board can be a weirdly amusing place, as well as a psychologically fascinating one.\u00a0 In recent days, the PO Board has taken predictably negative note of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s current film project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.\u00a0 (See the photographs accompanying this blog entry, as well as those featured here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Jeff Bradshaw<\/a>, who serves as the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s director of special projects and on its board, conceived the idea of a film project devoted to the emergence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> in the DR Congo.\u00a0 His fondness for the area and the stories of the Saints there comes naturally to him; between July 2016 and September 2019, he and his wife Kathleen served missions first in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission office and then in the DR Congo Kinshasa Temple.\u00a0 He is back in the Congo at the moment, along with Russell Richins<\/a> and James Jordan<\/a>, who previously served as, among other things, respectively the producer and associate producer of the Interpreter Foundation projects Robert Cundick: A Sacred Service of Music<\/a><\/em>, and Witnesses<\/a><\/em>, and Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em><\/a>, as well as the Foundation\u2019s short Insights<\/em> videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We have enough money behind the project to do the filming there in the Congo, but have not as yet raised the money for post-production (e.g., editing the raw footage, adding music, dubbing, and the like).\u00a0 There is no plan to take the films to theaters but, otherwise, we haven\u2019t decided how to distribute them.\u00a0 Perhaps the most likely scenario is simply posting them online and making them available online, as we did with Robert Cundick: A Sacred Service of Music<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 We have never seen them as a source of revenue; instead, they represent the sort of thing for which we use<\/em> whatever revenue we generate (which comes mostly in the form of donations).\u00a0 We think that the story and the stories of the Congolese Saints are worth telling, and worthy of the attention of other members of the Church.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As seen from the perspective of the PO Board, though, our effort to make a series of short films about the Church and its members in the DR Congo is an \u201cincredibly smelly\u201d exercise in \u201ccolonialism.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s also \u201cincredibly slimy.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019re using people there as mere \u201cprops\u201d in order to tell a faith-promoting story.\u00a0 (It\u2019s their story, of course, so I\u2019m at a bit of a loss to know how we would be able to tell their story without featuring any people in it.)\u00a0 Our project is mere \u201cexploitation and priestcraft.\u201d\u00a0 Our interviews of Congolese members are actually \u201cinterrogations\u201d and \u201clectures.\u201d<\/p>\n This is all \u201cdisturbing\u201d to posters on the PO Board, \u201cif not outright distasteful.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cDistasteful at best, and connivingly racist at worst.\u201d\u00a0 Interpreter is on \u201cexceptionally thin ice\u201d with all this, because the Foundation is \u201cexploiting\u201d impoverished Africans for \u201cpropaganda\u201d purposes.\u00a0 One commenter describes himself as feeling \u201cunsettled\u201d about this horrible affair, and \u201cuncomfortable\u201d about the fact that, unlike the denizens of the PO Board, the poor Congolese have no idea what kind of horrible people are now seeking to \u201cexploit\u201d them.\u00a0 (The verb to exploit<\/em> shows up repeatedly in comments on our film project.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The photos that I\u2019ve shared here, says my Malevolent Stalker, glorify \u201cleering\u201d white males.\u00a0 In fact, notes another member of the PO Board, there is a distinct lack of adult male Congolese in the photos that I\u2019ve shared \u2014 except, I suppose, for the blind tailor pictured in one of them, the jeep driver L\u00e9on, and Elder Willy Sabwe Binene and Elder Ndalamba Ilunga of the Third Quorum of the Seventy, and others \u2014 indicating to folks on the PO Board that the Church is enjoying very little success among men<\/em> in the Congo.\u00a0 (Apparently, they\u2019re under the impression that the photos I\u2019ve shared heretofore offer a representative demographic sample of Congolese Church membership \u2014 which, on that assumption, appears to be mostly made up of young children.)<\/p>\n Damnably, Interpreter\u2019s visiting trio of filmmakers is building no homes for people in the Congo during its roughly three-week stint there, providing no meals or clean water, nor even teaching any Church classes.\u00a0 \u201cThe apologists aren\u2019t even bothering to claim<\/em> that they\u2019re doing something good for the people of the DRC.\u201d\u00a0 With regard to the film project, they\u2019re just \u201cfooling around with drones\u201d and, well, using that drone and their other equipment to gather footage for a set of films.<\/p>\n And what is Interpreter\u2019s end goal?\u00a0 It is to \u201cexploit\u201d Africans in order to secure lucrative donations for the Foundation and, ultimately, pour moi<\/em>.\u00a0 And, of course, to pay for our forthcoming \u201canti-Community of Christ Brigham Young biopic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One commenter at the PO Board tried a couple of times to push gently back against some of these accusations.\u00a0 When viewed in the context of Africa\u2019s historic experiences with such violent phenomena as Arab imperialism and subsequent European colonialism, he observed, Interpreter\u2019s little film project seems \u201ccomparatively benign.\u201d\u00a0 I thought that concession remarkably generous of him:\u00a0 Our greed-driven brutality will be fairly limited.<\/p>\n But the bottom line, most others agreed \u2014 and \u201cbottom line\u201d is very much the appropriate phrase here \u2014 is that both the Church and the Interpreter Foundation are \u201cexploiting a foreign people for financial gain.\u201d\u00a0 The Church\u2019s \u201cbusiness model\u201d for Africa is a form of \u201cneocolonialism\u201d:\u00a0 It is using BYU Pathway and the Perpetual Education Fund in order to secure cheap local education for Africans.\u00a0 And that sounds good<\/em>, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Well, it isn\u2019t!\u00a0 The Church wants them to gain educations so that they can eventually occupy elite positions in business and government in such a way that the Church will accumulate power and influence.\u00a0 (One respondent grudgingly allows that the Church might be benefiting the Congolese a little<\/em> bit.\u00a0 But he immediately points out that Mussolini supposedly made the trains run on time, and that even the Ku Klux Klan may have done some good somewhere, sometime.)\u00a0 The Church is setting up \u201cfranchise locations\u201d so that it can harvest tithes from Africa that it can then feed into Ensign Peak Advisors back in Utah \u2014 which seems to be the very \u201cdefinition of colonialism.\u201d\u00a0 This is \u201cso the poor church doesn\u2019t starve to death in Salt Lake City.\u201d\u00a0 And the Interpreter Foundation is following the Church\u2019s wicked model:\u00a0 Our movie\u00a0effort is \u201ca purely \u2018extractive\u2019 project,\u201d in which we\u2019re \u201crolling in, filming some videos, and then heading back to the US to try and use the footage to milk donations out of people.\u201d<\/p>\n PO Board commenters grant that the Church has expressed disapproval of the customary African practice of dowries, which tend to oppress young Africans economically and to discourage marriage and family formation.\u00a0 But don\u2019t get carried away!\u00a0 This is not because the Church suddenly cares about marriage and families.\u00a0 No, the real motivation is that President Nelson and his cronies dislike the idea that all that dowry money stays local.\u00a0 Instead, they want it to come to the Church via tithing.\u00a0 Sure, the Church might invest a few \u201cpennies\u201d in Africa in order to get things going there, as seed money, but what Church leaders want is a \u201csustainable investment.\u201d\u00a0 And \u201csuccess,\u201d as viewed from Salt Lake City, means a flow of tithes to Utah and, most importantly, to Ensign Peak Advisors.\u00a0 It is, plainly, \u201cimperialism.\u201d\u00a0 And, likewise, \u201cThe Interpreter Foundation is using the Congolese people to make a quick buck.\u201d\u00a0 My own time, in fact, is dedicated to scheming about how to \u201cextract the maximum dollar amount from prospective donors.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One side issue, though:\u00a0 P.O. Board members want to know why I\u2019m<\/em> not there in the Congo.\u00a0 Hmmm?\u00a0 Inquiring minds, and all that.\u00a0 But, in fact, minds on the PO Board already<\/em> know:\u00a0 It\u2019s not because I\u2019m not a professional filmmaker and would be essentially useless there.\u00a0 It\u2019s not because my spoken French is, at best, mediocre. (By contrast, in addition to his two French-speaking missions in the Congo, Jeff Bradshaw served his first mission as a young man in France and Belgium and, subsequently, lived twice with his family in France.) It\u2019s because the rural Congo lacks the five-star accommodations and dining that I require.\u00a0 This is \u201cabout DCP gorging himself on beef pizza or washing down two orders of tikka masala with a diet soda.\u201d<\/p>\n Bad enough<\/em>, you think?\u00a0 Ah, but it\u2019s far worse even than that<\/em>.\u00a0 Why am I not in the Congo?\u00a0 \u201cIt is,\u201d says my Malevolent Stalker, \u201cimpossible to escape the racial implications here.\u201d\u00a0 (He\u2019s probably quite right that it\u2019s impossible for him<\/em>, at least, not to detect \u201cracial implications here.\u201d\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s what he does<\/em>.)\u00a0 \u201cHas DCP traveled to any<\/em> predominantly Black country?\u201d he asks.\u00a0 (The answer, by the way, is Yes.\u00a0 And I loved both trips.\u00a0 I wonder whether my Malevolent Stalker<\/em> has spent any time in majority-Black countries.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But here is the really pressing question:\u00a0 What will the Interpreter Foundation do with the massive profits that will somehow accrue from our short Congo-related videos?\u00a0 Will we donate even a tiny portion of our treasure hoard to the Congolese Latter-day Saints that we\u2019re exploiting?\u00a0 \u201cI think,\u201d says one PO Board participant who has specialized for years in making up defamatory fictions about me, \u201cthe more likely outcome is that 100% of the money they make on this project will be used for DCP\u2019s travel, meals and his anti-Community of Christ film, 6 Days in August.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, responds Kerry Shirts, another PO Board stalwart, \u201cif DCP donates a laptop and a few pencils, and a few scratch pads of paper, it will be outdoing the donations of the church.\u201d<\/p>\n Curious, I spent about fifteen seconds this afternoon in the relevant subfolder of the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122, and I came up with these four irrefutable confirmations of Mr. Shirts\u2019s claim:<\/p>\n \u201cLDS Charities $1M in Aid Will Help Those Suffering in DR Congo Crisis: Donation hits milestone with United Nations\u2019 World Food Programme\u201d<\/a> (2018)<\/p>\n \u201cMaternal and Neonatal Tetanus Eliminated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Latter-day Saint Charities participates with partners in global effort\u201d<\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>