New Historicism and the CTR ring

Those of you familiar with the Mormon culture know about the CTR ring. When you are eight, the sunday school class you are put into is named after the ring that you get upon its completion. The CTR ring is the most recognized esoteric symbol of the Mormon culture; it is a way of mormons recognizing each other without the proclamation of faith (which, if you know any mormons, will often happen anyway). The ring that these eight year olds get is a cheap, sizable ring that has the letters CTR set on a green shield; the initialism stands for "Choose the Right," one of those catch phrases of the religion.

So, looking at this object from a new historicist slant: By making the ring an initialism (like an acronym. In an acronym, you say the letters like a word, like radar or laser or NASA. An initialism you name every letter in the "word"), the knowledge is necessarily esoteric. You only know what CTR means if you are already interpolated into the culture.

The C stands for choose. The possibility of choice and individual power is central to the faith. As a descendant of puritan and protestantism, Mormonism makes the individual and individual choice central in the relationship to deity (if you are not as close to God as you want to be, it is because you chose to move away from him). This choice is also inherent in the way that callings are issued within the body of the church. With no paid (or formally--or often informally--trained) clergy, it becomes necessary to find some other means of recruiting member participation. In mormonism, this translates to fulfilling your calling. Members are taught from a young age that part of your duties as a faithful saint is to accept callings from the church to be president or teacher of a class, or to be on a committee. You choose to accept these callings (I mean, you are asked, given a choice), but not accepting a calling is largely looked down upon.