pluralistic religion is philosophy - true religious belief must be supernatural and absolute

The fundamentalist sect of the Mormon church is unique in its continued belief in prophets, in a defined heavenly life, in visits from Christ himself. "..It is also the teaching of the LDS Church that unless a spirit child inhabits a physical body, he cannot be elevated to godhood in the next life." Read short parts of a book by a woman raised in the sixth generation of polygamists and since separated from them today -- family folklore included a major raid in 1953. All the wives stood together, a man (her great-grandfather) walked out with his full white beard, "If you've come here for blood, you can take mine, I'm ready."

Joseph Smith Jessop

He posed for this photo with his youngest daughter, Mabel Ann, 4, after his release from jail. He stated it would probably be his last photograph and was dead within the week, at 84.

A young boy had been stationed at the front of the compound and set off dynamite when authorities were in sight, just before dawn; he ran to the foot of the town leaders and cried that 'they' were on their way and there were hundreds of them.

Short Creek, Arizona

The town's 36 men were arrested under charges ranging from statuatory rape to misappropriation of school funds, all 250 children scattered to protective services to be adopted by non-polygamist families, all 85 women were taken into custody and moved to Phoenix.

Just before dawn on July 26, 1953, more than 120 Arizona police officers descended on Short Creek in what then Gov. Howard Pyle called "a momentous police action against insurrection." They found residents of the polygamist community, who had been tipped off about the raid, gathered at the schoolhouse, singing. In days that followed, families were lined up outside their homes and photographed.

The five wives and some of the children of Richard S. Jessop, one of the men arrested when police entered the tiny Mormon community of Short Creek, Arizona.


29th August 1953: An empty chair in a Mormon household waits for Richard S. Jessop, who was among those arrested in a police raid on Short Creek, Arizona. The police arrested every man in the community on charges of polygamy. The two women on the right are both wives of Jessop, and some of the children are suspected of being child wives.

It was intended that the chaos would wipe out the community completely.

Their wives and children in state's custody, "Fundamentalists" of Short Creek, Arizona live in an all-male atmosphere. Here, they eat their breakfast.

The grandmother (the storyteller) had had a dream a few nights before the raid that the place was taken over, but Uncle Roy had gotten everyone into a wagon in time. Before the trial Uncle Roy hired a lawyer and told him to find the law on the books that stated a child may not be taken from parental custody without parental consent. He was understandably scoffed at, though not by members of the community who believed he must have had a revelation and be acting under the orders of God. Such a law was found and all children were returned to their parents, the case dropped.

Women and children taken in for questioning in the 1953 Short Creek raid

Today in the twin communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., monuments serve as a reminder. "July 26, 1953. We must never forget how the Lord blessed us in restoring our families taken in the 53 raid — Uncle Roy."

The dramatic story is worth telling, but I was getting to the more powerful folklore. The founder, or prophet, depending on your lean, of the Fundamentalist sect of the LDS was visited by Jesus Christ himself, shortly after the Mormon church rejected polygamy and stated a man may keep no more than two wives. Christ told him that polygamy was an integral part of faith and that those who rejected it rejected God, and to carry on with the true faith. During this meeting Christ handed the keys of the Mormon faith to the new prophet. Leroy S. Johnson insisted up until his death that he would live until the Second Coming of Christ and would be present to, "hand the Keys of Priesthood back to Him."

Leroy S. Johnson, first Prophet of FLDS

Revelation (literally, in the sense that one may have a revelation from God) is still an indispenable part of spiritual leadership here -- aside from this extreme example, it is believed that God will reveal to the prophet who a young girl should marry, based on her pact with God to marry a certain man, a pact made before her birth. It is believed that if a man lives correctly, with faith, and to serve God he will become a god himself in the afterlife. According to the doctrine, a man must have multiple wives if he wants to become a god in heaven and receive his own planet to populate.

Outside of the fundamentalist sect the roots are similiar:

The LDS view of the nature of humanity. The LDS Church teaches that all humans existed prior to life on earth as the "spirit children" of the Heavenly Father (and his wife/wives) in heaven, and that our earthly birth came about when our spirit willingly chose to inhabit a physical body on earth.

The LDS view of the nature of God. LDS theology states that God (or more commonly referred to as "Heavenly Father") is an exalted glorified man, that he has a physical (albeit immortal) body. It is also taught that qualifying Mormons can also become gods, just like the Heavenly Father, in the next life, and produce offspring (presumably to populate another earth.). The doctrine of the Trinity as accepted by Biblical Christianity is rejected by LDS theology. The LDS Church teaches that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are "spirit children" of God, and that Jesus is unique in that he is also the fleshy son of God (conceived by a physical union of the Heavenly Father and Mary). It is also taught that Lucifer, or Satan, is also one of the Heavenly Father's spirit-children, making him a "spirit brother" of Jesus.

All of this stands in sharp relief against the sensible ranks of modern religion -- those patrons that would openly reject prophecy no matter its source or reliability and much prefer more logical delusions. Those delusions that relate more closely to marketing than blind faith or supernatural creation and existence -- the new age-y ideas of laws of attraction and internal balance that cut out the mythical origin of religion altogether strike me as purely philosophical endeavors intended to strike an even more logical, sensical and individually conscious way of existing -- nearly the opposite of religion's structured traditions and rituals intended to impart a sense of balance and true place in the world via inherited culture. These rituals are set up to be the foundation of the individual -- to define the role of the self in the context of a social circumstance (and family history) built on that same foundation. What seems to me as their radical nature is unsurprising in that light - certainly none of this is inherently "stranger" than catholicism - what is surprising is the complete lack of such systems in an individualized culture and the stubborness of those few pockets of true religion left.