By Andy Williamson
As part of the Mormon Media Studies Symposium held at BYU on Thursday, public relations experts presented papers exploring the Church’s European and Israeli PR efforts.
Blair G. Van Dyke, an Orem Institute Director and expert in Near Eastern Studies, discussed the feat accomplished by the Church in 1985 with the construction of the BYU Jerusalem Center.
“The Jerusalem Center was the LDS Church’s boldest building project of the 20th century and was the most expensive building the Church had ever built up to that time,” Dyke said.
Dyke explained the concerted opposition and outright persecution that ensued in Israel once the Church announced plans to build the center.
“Ultra Orthodox Jews thought that this project was a plot to convert all Jews to Mormonism and thus destroy Jewish culture,” Dyke said. “They viewed it as a sort of ‘spiritual colonialism’ of a distant Salt Lake City faith imposing its religion. The building was even being referred to by the locals as ‘the Mormon Missionary Center.’”
So how do we have a BYU campus in Jerusalem? In August 1985, (then) Elder Boyd K. Packer and Elder Jeffery R. Holland traveled to the Holy Land and personally addressed concerns of the Israeli people and, among other things, pledged not to proselyte.
Thirty-five years later, the BYU Jerusalem Center still sits on its perch on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the walls of Jerusalem.
Kelsey Koenen, a graduate student at BYU, presented on the LDS Church’s public relations efforts in Europe by sharing her personal interviews with its European public relations directors.
“Public Affairs is one of the key ways of bringing the Church out of obscurity, as well as strengthening the faith,” said Rourland Elvidge, the Church public relations director for the UK.
All of these public relations directors serve as their church calling and are not professionals, Koenen said, but the enthusiasm for the gospel they bring to those around them is changing lives and building relationships throughout several nations in Europe.
