humancloning

My father's family is obsessed with Mormons, I think it's fair to say. Well..not Mormons. Most of the Mormons I've known have been perfectly regular people. If you're Mormon, please forgive me if that sounds callous. We are, however, obsessed with Mormonism, and have been since my aunt and uncle took a trip to Salt Lake City many years ago and came back with something we call "The Mormon Movie". "The Mormon Movie" is like the axis point of a fascination that's gone on for years and is easy to explain: we're Lutherans. As Lutheran, in fact, as they come. My grandfather co-founded the church my parents grew up in, and my dad and uncle were both pastors as younger men. My mom's family went to that Lutheran church, too, her mother was the choir director. The story goes on. So for us, the stories of rites and rituals, of Jesus visiting the Americas, of holy underwear, of plural marriage, almost seemed too fantastical to be true. Despite the inaccuracies of some of our perceptions of the LDS, this curiousity definitely added to my interest and enjoyment of this book, which is not so much a criticism of the Mormon Church as a look into how its history led to some very gruesome murders. LDS, of course, was not too thrilled with it, but I thought the book does a pretty evenhanded job of presenting facts more than opinions. I read it for my father's book club, and we had a debate about how fair he was being. But we also argued about how valuable participation in a religious institution is in the first place, or how corrupting it can be (I should add that the murderers in this book were part of a few different sects of Mormonism that were NOT part of the LDS). At any rate, it made us think and debate a lot, and it made us angry. That alone, I think, is a good reason to pick this one up.

2022-10-21 05:46