Abstract

The September Six excommunications of six Mormon intellectuals from the Church of Latter-day Saints (LDS) continues to be seen by the LDS academic and progressive communities as a turning point in Church history. In the struggle for control over the historical and theological narrative of the Church, both the Latter-day Saints leadership, as well as the intellectual community, intentionally engaged with the concept of “secular,” each group utilizing it to justify their subjective experience of their faith. This article explores how the September Six intellectuals conceived of themselves in relationship to Mormon tradition, official LDS rhetoric surrounding the highly-publicized excommunications, and how the actions of both destabilize the assumedly discrete categories of “secular” and “religious.”

How to Cite:

Hermanson, K. M., (2016) “The September Six: Deployments and Disruptions of the Secular/Religious Binary in Latter-day Saints Rhetoric”, Arizona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5, 47-63.