In recent months, Mitt Romney’s candidacy and other events have thrown Mormonism into the spotlight. All sorts of things have been said about Mormons and Mormonism, some of them true, some of them not. As practicing Mormons, we decided that the world needs more information about Mormonism and less misinformation. At the time we were also doing research on badges, a new Internet phenomenon. We thought, what if badges could be used to spread information about Mormonism and correct misconceptions? What if a regular person or even a journalist could earn a badges to learn basic facts about Mormonism and then display it online to show their credibility when they participated in online discussions about Mormonism? We decided to create a series of “Mormon Badges” to educate curious people who want accurate information about the fastest growing American religion.
Many people still believe that Mormons practice polygamy, even though the Church ended the practice over one hundred years ago. We wanted to use our first badge to correct this misconception. Our “Mormons and Polygamy” badge requires users to read two web pages published by the LDS Church and take a short quiz to test their understanding.
Reflecting and Rethinking
After publishing our first badge, we wanted to step back and reflect on our goals for Mormon badges. We realized that it was more important to us to educate people about what Mormonism is than about what it isn’t. With this in mind, we chose the founding or “restoration” of the LDS Church as the topic of our next badge, instead of choosing another misconception to correct.
We also began thinking about other ways that badges could be used in the Mormon community.
New Possibilities
As we continue to develop Mormon literacy badges, we are exploring what badges can do for the youth programs of the LDS Church. Possible future badges include ones to help girls 12-18 complete the Church’s Personal Progress program and badges to help Mormon youth in church-run religious education classes memorize verses of scripture.
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