LETTER: Please consider quote context

Editor,

I believe in the importance of considering text and speech in its context. This is why I was appalled when I read the opinion article entitled “Religious Orientalism: Boyd K. Packer et al” in Wednesday’s Statesman. I don’t know Mr. D’Souza’s religious affiliation or his purposes in writing this article, but those things hold little relevance (he seems to give enough context of the situation in his article). In any case, D’Souza’s article grossly misrepresented Boyd K. Packer’s General Conference comments.

Or rather, it didn’t discuss the talk, but only three sentences from it. I observed that if Mr. D’Souza had been awake instead of “sprawled out on the cold basement floor, [his] mind drifting in and out of sleep” during the first part of Packer’s talk, he might have had an inkling of what Packer was talking about. He might have been aware of the context of the three sentences he quoted.

Packer was not addressing the great apostasy. He was not classifying those who aren’t members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as “directionless heathen” or “the spawn of Satan,” as D’Souza indicated. Far from it. Packer was urging those who were listening to hold on to those values that form the core of their beliefs and the core of who they are. He was addressing the manner in which today’s society tries to downplay the importance of a strong marriage and family unit, and the benefits of personal morality. He was counseling his audience against permissiveness as promoted by some with words like “diversity,” “tolerance,” and “choice.” Packer was warning against addictive lifestyles or substances.

I have studied Orientalism in a classroom setting, and I can tell Mr. D’Souza that the condescending attitude of Orientalism is not that of the LDS Church as a whole. I would encourage him and others to understand the context of spoken or written word so as not to misrepresent the speaker or author.

Ben Minson