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Wayfarer, I am totally with you and GBH as far as having a testimony of it as it applies to me in my life. I do however think there is sufficient evidence that JS did initiate the practice. My own ancestry has close ties to JS’s personal practice – in fact as he promised the salvation of entire households with all their posterity I would be considered saved along with all my family. Personally I think the level of conspiracy is too great to be plausible when you consider all the different personal journals that attribute the teaching to JS. Too many people tell the story that would have absolutely nothing to gain by siding with BY. Of course, it’s okay if some don’t have a testimony of polygamy. Here’s how I see the possibilities:
1. Joseph had affairs and made up a revelation and a practice to justify them. He spread the practice among the apostles and other leaders. The highest leaders in the church continued the practice for decades.
2. Due to marital experiments among other sects and his imagination, he was led to believe that plural marriage was okay, but it really wasn’t. The highest leaders in the church continued the practice for decades.
3. Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy and we should ignore many accounts that say otherwise. Brigham Young started the practice. The highest leaders in the church continued the practice for decades.
4. God revealed to Joseph the practice of plural marriage and told him to do it. It was repulsive to many, but many also received spiritual confirmations of its truthfulness. Though it got out of hand in some cases, it was practiced with authority for a while. There is no reason why God, whose thoughts and ways are higher than our’s, cannot command his people to practice plural marriage at times.
Any way we look at options 1, 2, 3, they must include the highest leaders in the church practicing organized adultery for decades. I just don’t see how the church could be “true” in any way if that were the case. I go with number 4.
we will agree to disagree on that. Did you have ancestors who were caught into ‘the principle’? wayfarer wrote:we will agree to disagree on that. Did you have ancestors who were caught into ‘the principle’?
I actually don’t know if any of my ancestors participated in thepractice
Historicly in the old testament it was never a commandment. Just a cultural thing that god allowed until king David and Solomon let it get out of hand. We have no way of knowing for sure if it was or not a new commandment but it certainly wasn’t a commandment of old. I respect 2 consenting adults if they wanted to practice it during that time. Forced or coerced or sneaking around without consent is most unchrist like though. Certainly not godly or virtuous. So I choose to see it without those things happening if their is evidence to support that thought. Polyandry was a sin equal to death even in Abraham’s , David’s time. So I choose not to think that we did that if their is evidence to sudjest we didn’t. Their is also evidence to sudjest that JS “repented” of it weeks before being jailed saying he felt it was a revolution of the devil. I don’t know. It just seems that publicly he spoke out against it and in D&C supported this by denouncing polegamy. I just don’t want to get caught in any lying for the lord business side of things. What ever the reality is, we all make mistakes. We all sin. Just different ones. The idea is to strive to be better everyday. In my heart I believe that is what JS was doing or trying to do. But he, just like everyone else still made mistakes. Quote:I respect 2 consenting adults if they wanted to practice it during that time. Forced or coerced or sneaking around without consent is most unchrist like though.
This is my take on it.
Someone once said to me, “what about the abuse?” – Well two things in that case, it was probably coerced (and the bride was too young) and secondly abuse also happens in monogamy – and in gay marriage – as well. Polygamy in itself does not cause abuse… in fact if it does cause anything, in and of itself, it’s neglect, since multiple wives (and their many offspring) won’t get the same amount of attention and time from the husband.
I’m not trying to defend polygamy, but, in practice, it’s only neglect if neglect is defined as not spending a certain amount of time together – and in comparison to monogamous marriages in which the husband actually spends more time with his wife than a polygamist man spends with each of his wives. I know LOTS of monogamous marriages where the spouses don’t spend much time together, and most people wouldn’t call it neglect. It’s easy to make statements decrying one thing when those same statements could apply equally to other things. That’s why I can’t stand most of the arguments against gay marriage. My own view is irrelevant to the point that most of those arguments could be used equally to forbid or annul LOTS of straight marriages.
Broad brushes are easy to use and finish the job more quickly, but they also are sloppier and spill easily outside the area being painted.
Yes, the more spouses (and children) you have, the less time you can lavish on them. Mind you, some people love spending time away from the spouse in monogamy, taking up knitting, fishing etc, as you say. My parents could spend a lot of time together not talking. I don’t mean an uncomfortable silence – quite the opposite really. It showed exactly how comfortable they were together.
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