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It's difficult to sift through the rhetoric about the history and current state of one of the world's fastest-growing religions.

The LDS Church has drawn passion on both sides: the self-righteous who boast the church can do no wrong and the anti-Mormons who spew unfair criticisms.

But in the new PBS documentary "The Mormons" - perhaps the biggest national documentary about the church ever televised - filmmaker Helen Whitney has combed through rapture and rants about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to get to the simple truths.

She has produced a comprehensive look at the church's violent and tumultuous history and its modern-day popularity with objectivity - no pious declarations from church leaders or venomous attacks from anti-Mormons.

And it's riveting.

The two-part, four-hour documentary is the first collaboration between two of PBS' best-known news series, "American Experience" and Frontline," and was written and directed by Whitney, who produced past "Frontline" specials on Pope John Paul II and the 9/11 attacks.

In "The Mormons," she elicits the best in storytelling from historians, professors, church leaders and Mormon dissidents who tell simple but compelling stories. Utahns may recognize local historian Will Bagley, KUED documentary filmmaker Ken Verdoia, and Elder Marlin Jensen, an LDS authority and church historian, all of whom are featured prominently.

Part one which debuts Monday at 8 p.m. on KUED Channel 7 and KBYU Channel 11, covers the Mormon Restoration from its beginnings in New York with prophet Joseph Smith, to his murder in a Missouri Illinois jail and the Mormon exodus to Salt Lake City. The second half, airing Tuesday at the same time, shows how the church evolved from a detested 19th-century fringe sect to a religious powerhouse that has succeeded on political, social and cultural landscapes.

Extreme anti-Mormons might be disappointed the documentary is not more toxic. Some devout Mormons might think it's too critical.

Particularly in the second half, the documentary examines church leaders' insistence on members toeing the Mormon line and how individual dissent is discouraged, even to the point of excommunicating some of those who speak out.

It also examines the commitment and hardships of LDS missionaries, as well as the church's desire to keep secret most of its records, including financial statements and disciplinary hearing transcripts.

But every concern about the church's version of history or its prominence today is balanced with the Mormon side of the story with interviews from LDS historians, leaders Boyd Packer and Dallin Oaks, and a brief appearance by President Gordon B. Hinckley.

Mormons and Utahns familiar with the church likely will be disappointed the documentary does not reveal much that is new.

There are rehashings of the life of Joseph Smith, the settling of Salt Lake City by Brigham Young, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Haun's Mill massacre and other controversial points in LDS history.

But for viewers who don't know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this is an intriguing and even-handed look at a global religious phenomenon.