The smoke clears on the stage set below Hill Cumorah. The Angel Moroni begins burying the golden plates. Finally, the scene reverts to a youthful Joseph Smith, which symbolizes that the gap has been brought full circle and the only true American religion is set to begin. There are few more dramatic stories than Mormonism. They are enacting the bible, they are out there on the road to Damascus. Its a new story that has no history so there is no sectarian fight over meaning. You swallow it or you walk, and once you accept it, there’s not much to fight over. Mormonism is a kind of tabula rasa, a turning of the page that created a new story in the new world for which there was no historical precedent. Mormon history is young like America. In 1830, the year the Book of Mormon was published, Joseph Smith formally organized the denomination known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. …
The Sacred Grove, and an angel named Moroni who hovered above Smith’s bed and told him where to find the golden plates. In September 1827, Smith was considered worthy enough to take the plates away and translate its script into the English language. We know how it ends: a battle worthy of Revelation in which the Lamanites, seen by Mormons to be the ancestors of Native Amerindians, smite the Nephites in one final, blood soaked and epic battle. A kind of nihilism that restores Christianity to its true form and at the same time evolving an ethnic identity which appears almost completely white.
Whether they are descendants of Christ’s , in mid-air on a visit to an ancient tribe of Israel in the Western Hemisphere, just after his crucifixion and resurrection, is a matter of faith only. What is not disputed is that Mormonism arose out of a period of religious fervor known as the Great Awakening in which new sects branched out over different interpretations of the Biblical texts and also spawned utopian projects like Brook Farm and New Harmony.
However, the intrigue of Mormonism is that it contains tribes, characters, and prophets that remain unknown and undocumented to the near entirety of world’s traditional Christian faith.Polygamous lifestyles and depictions of a violent strain as part of the faith’s DNA seem more a red herring than the scholarly assertions of completing the Bible, which perhaps ingeniously ties in with the concept of American exceptionalism and the idea of a chosen nation. If the original plates ever make the round trip back from heaven, it would give the opportunity to corroborate the translation into English text.
ADDENDUM:
The spectacle actually begins in the grassy parking lot, where the fleet of Winnebago motor homes with out-of-state tags testifies both to the breadth of the Mormon diaspora and the allure of this annual pilgrimage. The line of state troopers down the center of Route 21 is no mere fascist display; it serves an important peace-keeping function. On the west side of the highway are the sign-bearing Christian protesters (I understand that Mormons, too, consider themselves Christians; other Christians do not) who’ve taken time off from picketing abortion clinics to volunteer for the lighter duty of telling Mormons that they’re going to hell; on the east side of the highway, the Mormons are free to walk unmolested onto the pageant grounds….
…Standing between them, the state troopers in their spiffy uniforms embody the concept of the “separation of Church and State,” the real purpose of which is (and always has been) to separate Church from Church – though disparaged by religious zealots, it is what keeps them from slitting each other’s throats. Read More:http://churchoftherebarjesus.blogspot.com/2010/03/please-forgive-me-moroni-for-i-have.html
Read More:http://www.mormonartistsgroup.com/Mormon_Artists_Group/Glimpses_Nephis_Colored_Plates.html