If you Google the term “Mormons exposed,” two types of sites come up: anti-Mormon literature and the new shirtless calendar featuring male LDS returned missionaries.

The first is blatant in its attempt to tear down the church, while the other claims to celebrate the efforts of its missionaries. I am not so sure, however, with which pole the calendar is more closely aligned.

The “steamy” new calendar has raised eyebrows in and outside the LDS community. In a recent national interview, Fox News’ Shepherd Smith disbelievingly asked co-founder Chad Hardy, “Chad, what are you doing? I thought Mormons were supposed to be conservative.”

Well, that is exactly the misconception that Hardy is out to attack. Hardy started the calendar because he was tired of the “goody-goody” perceptions that many non-LDS hold about church members.

“By showing these missionaries as regular people, we hope to build a common thread that can break down some of the barriers that have built up. … Far too much fear, hatred, anger and violence is committed in (and against) the name of religion,” Hardy said on his Web site.

His solution? Get a bunch of returned missionaries to pose shirtless.

Without addressing the topic of whether it is appropriate for church members to pose as shirtless missionaries, I can’t help but question the logic of their purpose. Most members have been mocked for being “prudish” or “old-fashioned.” I know that I have. Most of the people I met on my mission couldn’t understand how Salt Lake City ran the Olympics when Mormons refuse to use electricity.

The point is that members of the church have to deal with incorrect stereotypes all the time. The more pressing question that this calendar forces is, what is more harmful to the church, the stereotype that all members part their hair and play board games for fun or the thought that those 21-year-olds knocking at your door can’t wait to go home and show you what they really look like?

Stereotypes exist. Learn to laugh at them. And when the good ones come around, embrace them.

The larger issue is how can Hardy and this “devout dozen,” feel that what they are doing is right? Hardy claims that he is not trying to capitalize off an association with the church and in the next breath says that just as a firefighter calendar wouldn’t be the same if the models weren’t firefighters, so a missionary calendar wouldn’t be the same if the models weren’t missionaries.

The contradictions don’t end there. Hardy also claims, “[The calendar] isn’t about the church or promoting the church. It’s about 12 young members of the church.”

This seems odd considering that many of his models speak of the calendar as being a way to introduce people to the gospel. In his biography on the Web site, model Austin said, “I consider this a good opportunity to spread the word about the church and let people know who missionaries are and what we are doing.”

My mission president told us to come up with creative ways to teach the gospel, but I don’t think he had this in mind. Likewise, I am not sure it will work in any substantive way with this endeavor.

At the end of the day, the calendar is making money off its association with the church and it is doing so at the expense of the church. Blog entries from people in and outside of the church have associated the calendar with soft porn. While I don’t want to get into the discussion of what is pornography, you can hardly blame these entries when the calendar is riddled with pornography’s lexicon.

Think about it. Mormons Exposed celebrates 12 “hunky” men of faith, “exploding with sexuality” who “dared to pose bare-chested” in order to “bare their testimony” in this first-time ever “steamy” calendar.

Hardy and his models should forget their delusions. The calendar is what it is: an erotic calendar that is more likely to taint people’s perceptions of the church than improve them.

Brandon Dabling is the Issues and Ideas Editor for The Daily Universe.

Copyright Brigham Young University 26 Sep 2007