As
the Church fell into crisis in the 17th century, an emerging secular
governmentality assumed custodial rights over life and population issues
previously
managed by the Church. With this, the modern State evolved, giving rise
to politics. Like medicine and science, politics grows and takes more
and more things into its body of knowledge, even religion, which itself
is now highly politicized (it has been before
now, but in different ways). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints was developed in the context of this politics, and has been
linked to it since the beginning as evident in the religion's history, a
story of battling for political contention.
Taking
this story on a tangent, on June 30 this year, a modest group of Mormons gathered to renounce their membership in the LDS Church using methods
that conflate
the political with the religious: their gathering was personal ceremony
and political protest; they waved a "Declaration of Independence from
Mormonism" and offered letters of resignation, seeking "freedom" as they
gathered at Ensign Peak like Brigham Young
did with his followers in 1847; they sacrificed church-bound
relationships with their community, yearning to receive those same
relationships in return, renewed as social and business ties; their
reasons for quitting included Church teachings that are "made
up", that conflict with science, that conflict with history, that veil
racism and promote intolerance, and that are inconsistent.
Anyway, this story sort of stuck out like this.
