A Divine Rebellion

"Indigenous Sacraments among Global "Lamanites

Bibliographic Data

ID3170740
AuthorsD Hernandez (0000-0001-5269-3978, University of Auckland, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume12
Issue4
Pages280
Publication date2021-04-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel12040280
OpenAlexW3154418038
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited14

This essay engages with some of the experiences and metaphysics of Indigenous peoples who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism/LDS/the Church) by responding to their structural construction as "Lamanites". Lamanites have been interpreted within Mormonism to be ancestors of various global Indigenous peoples of the "Americas" and "Polynesia". This essay reveals how contemporary Indigenous agency by presumed descendants of the Lamanites, who embrace both an Indigenous and a Mormon identity, shifts the cosmology of the Church. Interpretations of TheBook of Mormon that empower contemporary Indigenous agency paradoxically materialize a divinely inspired cultural rebellion within the Church itself. However, this tension that is mediated by Lamanites in the Church is not framed as an exclusive response to the Church itself but, rather, to a larger global hegemony of coloniality to which the Church is subject. These Lamanite worldviews can be understood as a process of restoring ancestral Indigenous sacraments (rituals) through Mormon paradigms, which are found and nurtured in the cracks and fissures of both the material and ontological infrastructure of Mormonism's dominant paradigm. When Indigenous Mormons assert autonomous authorship of their own cosmogony and metaphysics, the Church beliefs of restoring a 'primitive Christian church' and 'becoming Gods' is creatively transformed into a more relevant and liberating possibility here and now

Aesthetics · Art · Cosmogony · Hegemony · Indigenous · Literature · Metaphysics · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Theology · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Mormonism, Religion, and History · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

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