I. History and Origins

The Church of Jocasta has its roots in the first Oedipal Zone, which was established in Greenville, North Carolina in 2016. As the population of Greenville built up and new laws and customs around **** were solidified, their culture quickly began to diverge from surrounding areas. Soon the structure of their society was alien to citizens living just a few hours away. A number of factors, backgrounds, and perspectives within the nascent O.Z. combined to form what sociologists have since coined "Oedipal Culture." Examples of Oedipal Culture include the notion of **** as a moral good, and a strong sense of hierarchy. The Alpha/Beta/Orphantown Local caste system first began to form in this context, as traditional family structures were flipped on their head.

Changes in tradition go hand-in-hand with changes in faith. Just as the global Free Use Revolution required many religions to rethink their stance on issues such as infidelity and sexuality, the dawn of Oedipal Zones clashed with long-held ideas about patriarchy and the **** taboo. Needless to say, the new ideas won out in the end.

In a nigh-unprecedented coming-together of ideas, a coalition of former missionaries, priests, local government officials, Pearson scientists, and Greco-Roman scholars began working on what would become the foundation of the Church of Jocasta. The "Religious Council of Greenville" lasted for seven days, ending with the founding of the Church of Jucasta on June 5th, 2017.

The first adherants of this new religion believed that what the rest of the world referred to as the "Baier & Pearson Chemical Disaster" was actually a divine event. Just as many faiths frame the Free Use Revolution as the gods' answer to declining birth rates, the Church of Jocasta frames the aforementioned disaster as a solution to the stagnant and father-centric family structure.

"The lust of the son quickly overtakes that of the father," an unnamed council attendee wrote, "and so should his power. Father have weaponized our culture and tradition to hold their sons back; to artificially limit their rightful power. The gods see this, and the changes that have beset us are their way of nudging us in the right direction."

Once the Church of Jocasta was established, its membership grew at an astonishing rate. Every established Oedipal Zone on record is home to a branch, with many also containing private schools run by the Church and/or theological schools where new priests and priestesses are trained.

Even in secular O.Z. schools, the Church has had its influence. For example, a highly-edited version of the play Oedipus Rex is required reading in many curriculums. This version is believed by the faithful to be the "true telling," unsullied by puritanical influence from past religions. It involves a happy ending for Oedipus and Jocasta, and shifts the blame for the stories' conflicts onto multiple spiteful father figures.

As of today, the growth of the Church of Jocasta does not seem to be slowing. Some experts assume that the growth rate of the religion will soon fall off, as it reaches an equilibrium with the number of people living in Oedipal Zones; others believe that the religion will only continue to grow, with increasing missionary work allowing it to expand beyond Oedipal Zones and/or encouraging the creation of more. If this pattern is followed, then the Church of Jocasta is on-track to become one of the five largest religions in the world by the year 2042.