Laura Hales @ Millenial Star

Amen! Lindsay is doing a great job and I think will become quite well known.

Editorials analyzing the details through a twenty-first century lens haven’t been particularly helpful either. The early Saints were different from us, so we shouldn’t expect that they would think or behave as we would. Cultural historian Robert Darnton warned that when looking at history we must be prepared for culture shock:

Other people are other. They do not think the way we do. And if we want to understand their way of thinking we should set out with the idea of capturing otherness. . . . We constantly need to be shaken out of a false sense of familiarity with the past.

Too often I see criticisms waged that are based on anachronistic thinking measured against twenty-first century mores. I try to situate those seeking understanding firmly in the nineteenth century.

I completely agree with this. I believe that my understanding of polygamy has increased 100% after separating it from current assumptions and teachings. It helps IMO to look at the early church as a study of a church that died out long ago. In a very real way the Mormon Church has put off the old life and been born again. The problem comes IMO from trying to tie the modern church and the early church together. If we assume that the theology behind polygamy is eternal and commanded by God then what does that say about God, heaven, and the role of women in the kingdom? Did JS and others of the early saints misunderstand and take experimental liberties with principles that were later refined and more clearly revealed into what we now have? Or did JS and the early saints have an accurate understanding at the time that has subsequently been modified, corrupted, and sold out for the sake of caving to public pressure? Because this point is very clear to me – what we collectively teach, believe, and envision about marriage and family life in heaven in the modern LDS church is VERY different from what was taught in the days of polygamy. “Capturing otherness” and “culture shock” are good ways to describe it.

After studying the lives of the early Saints, I have grown to admire some and mourn with others. What many don’t realize is that when they attack Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy, they also attack his plural wives and their families. When criticisms are lodged at Joseph for being sealed to teenage girls, they are also directed at the adults who gave their permission for the unions. When critics decry undue influence, they ignore the widespread skepticism of the Nauvoo Saints. I don’t feel a need to defend polygamy, but I do feel the need to defend history, with all its participants.

This is similar. I do not judge slave owners harshly – they were part of a culture and time that included the owning of other human beings. I do not mind the ancient patriarchs having multiple wives as that was part of the time. JS and the early saints were also part of a unique time of religious upheaval and invention – polygamy was a part of that. I do not assume that everyone’s motives in times past were completely pure but that is just part of the human condition that stays with us from age to age. I do believe that by and large those that participated in polygamy in the early days of the church did so as an act of religious devotion and sacrifice.

The problem again comes in when we try to infer eternal principles from the behavior of these previous generations. Suppose a blogger was arguing that slavery was a God sanctioned/commanded eternal principle, that it was doctrinally sound, and would be practiced in heaven (possibly as a requirement for entry). This blogger further states that slavery is not currently practiced in mortality but that it could be divinely reinstated any day now. Then in response to the firestorm of criticism, the blogger says that people that attack his position also attack the Founding Fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin that owned slaves. I see this statement from Laura Hales in this light.

I know that slavery is inflammatory in itself. I also am aware that there are big differences between polygamy and slavery that make it an apples and oranges comparison. I am only trying to illustrate how it is so very difficult tie together our polygamous past with our monogamous/nuclear family present and our eternal future in heaven. IMO it is an exercise in heartache and futility. I suggest that we cut the past loose and be as charitable as we can towards people that were trying to please God in ways very foreign to our understanding. I say let the current generation imagine a heaven that speaks to their own needs, hopes, and desires without having to shoehorn in the teachings and expectations of a past that is so different (and sometimes abhorrent) to us.

… It helps IMO to look at the early church as a study of a church that died out long ago. In a very real way the Mormon Church has put off the old life and been born again. The problem comes IMO from trying to tie the modern church and the early church together. If we assume that the theology behind polygamy is eternal and commanded by God then what does that say about God, heaven, and the role of women in the kingdom? Did JS and others of the early saints misunderstand and take experimental liberties with principles that were later refined and more clearly revealed into what we now have? Or did JS and the early saints have an accurate understanding at the time that has subsequently been modified, corrupted, and sold out for the sake of caving to public pressure? Because this point is very clear to me – what we collectively teach, believe, and envision about marriage and family life in heaven in the modern LDS church is VERY different from what was taught in the days of polygamy. “Capturing otherness” and “culture shock” are good ways to describe it.

I think this is a great way to put it. With the essays and silence on 132, we are being bound to the old church, but we love the new church. Let us live there. The historians can “capture otherness” all day long if that’s what fascinates them, and we do need a good record of what went on, but it is “otherness.” Most of the free-born women of the church now want nothing to do with it.

I do not judge slave owners harshly – they were part of a culture and time that included the owning of other human beings. I do not mind the ancient patriarchs having multiple wives as that was part of the time. JS and the early saints were also part of a unique time of religious upheaval and invention – polygamy was a part of that. I do not assume that everyone’s motives in times past were completely pure but that is just part of the human condition that stays with us from age to age. I do believe that by and large those that participated in polygamy in the early days of the church did so as an act of religious devotion and sacrifice.

The problem again comes in when we try to infer eternal principles from the behavior of these previous generations. Suppose a blogger was arguing that slavery was a God sanctioned/commanded eternal principle, that it was doctrinally sound, and would be practiced in heaven (possibly as a requirement for entry). This blogger further states that slavery is not currently practiced in mortality but that it could be divinely reinstated any day now. Then in response to the firestorm of criticism, the blogger says that people that attack his position also attack the Founding Fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin that owned slaves. I see this statement from Laura Hales in this light.

I know that slavery is inflammatory in itself. I also am aware that there are big differences between polygamy and slavery that make it an apples and oranges comparison. I am only trying to illustrate how it is so very difficult tie together our polygamous past with our monogamous/nuclear family present and our eternal future in heaven. IMO it is an exercise in heartache and futility. I suggest that we cut the past loose and be as charitable as we can towards people that were trying to please God in ways very foreign to our understanding. I say let the current generation imagine a heaven that speaks to their own needs, hopes, and desires without having to shoehorn in the teachings and expectations of a past that is so different (and sometimes abhorrent) to us.

I agree that it’s futile. I just want to beg them, please stop. I read on other boards this week that some parents have received e-mails from their kids’ seminary teachers that they’re going to be covering 132 this week, that the kids need to know the doctrine so they can defend it. So they can defend it??? (My daughter’s class isn’t there yet and I don’t know how it’ll be handled.)

Please, cut the past loose. Really cut. Don’t pat us on the hand and say, “Polygamy? Who knows…whatever God commands. You just worry about your own salvation.” Would you stick around in a church that says, “Slavery? Hmmmm……” No! We put the question to rest. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing on God’s green earth – grappling and growing from grace to grace.

Roy, could I quote you elsewhere?

Roy, could I quote you elsewhere?

Yes, please!

I am wondering if the main reason we can’t move past this is we can’t (church leadership) say anything negative about previous (or certainly not current) leaders. Not to steal this thread – I created a separate one on THE main issue thread