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cwald wrote:
I was extending you a peace offering.
I wasn’t aware we were at war? But, I’ll accept your offer. I’ll be polite so long as you are and so long as you refrain from attacking me to make your point.
Okay. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Now that cwald and tobin are holding hands đ , let’s all have that sort of discussion in the Private Message forum, ok?
mackay11 wrote:I agree that this is still limited and I agree that this is still spun in Joseph’s favour. But the fact that an official church website has even acknowledged it happened is, for me, progress.
I don’t pay much attention to what the church would like me to think any more. I have a couple of dozen quotes, also from church sources, that teach me to think for myself.In order for the skeletons to start coming out of the closet they need to at least start to acknowledge what has been hiding in that closet.
I imagine more and more well-documented (to the extent they can be) accounts of the practice of polygamy/polyandry will start showing up on reputable sites. I just don’t think the church or those who function as kind of self-appointed proxies are going to have the stomach for calling attention to the subject by constantly insisting that God commanded it. It’s one thing to say it in the heading to OD1 and once a year when a seminary or GD lesson unavoidably touches on it. But I think there’s going to be a snowballing of rejection of it as doctrine among members when they feel free to have their own opinion. (I also think that our empathy for those who lived it will increase as more stories are told.)
That’s the real dilemma, Ann. If people who have been taught for years – all their lives – come to the realization that plural marriage may have been a false doctrine (and I’m not taking a stand on whether it is or isn’t) or that Joseph may have many more blemishes than they thought, then their faith gets shaken. Having gone through that shaking to the core, and I think being better for it although I don’t currently attend church, it’s something that will cause some people to leave the church. Because of hiding these things for so long and in fact teaching the opposite, the church doesn’t really have a way to save face, as it were. I think the church is doing the right thing by making these documents available, but it will come at a cost. The real question is will there be more like me who don’t really care because Joseph was either a prophet or he wasn’t, or will there be more who leave the church and/or join the antis because of it. DarkJedi wrote:That’s the real dilemma, Ann. If people who have been taught for years – all their lives – come to the realization that plural marriage may have been a false doctrine (and I’m not taking a stand on whether it is or isn’t) or that Joseph may have many more blemishes than they thought, then their faith gets shaken. Having gone through that shaking to the core, and I think being better for it although I don’t currently attend church, it’s something that will cause some people to leave the church. Because of hiding these things for so long and in fact teaching the opposite, the church doesn’t really have a way to save face, as it were. I think the church is doing the right thing by making these documents available, but it will come at a cost. The real question is will there be more like me who don’t really care because Joseph was either a prophet or he wasn’t, or will there be more who leave the church and/or join the antis because of it.
The Internet is prompting these changes. I just finished a book by Max Dupree, and he commented on how a simple thing like the introduction of a lightbulb in huts in African tribes extinguished story telling of tribe history. Storytelling happened around the fire at night as no one could see much, so they told stories. This kept people connected with their tribal culture. But the lightbulb did away with storytelling. Technology changed culture.
In our modern age, the Internet is the lightbulb. But its impact is the reverse of the lightbulb’s effect on African tribes. Rather than extinguishing history, it has revealed it. Everyone is learning about our troubled history, and people are leaving over it…so now, the Church has to acknowledge it. A new paradigm needs to emerge for dealing with these problems. Ray’s approach in another thread is one possible way. No doubt, people will find a way to accept it.
This will make for a more realistic view of our church that may insulate people from less activity. Kind of like a realistic job preview reduces turnover, the research says.
I think it is a stroke of genius for the church to face facts and release information. This gives them the chance to frame the information in a way that others who want to keep good relations with the church (members and non alike), to see the information in the most positive light it can be presented. I don’t think it will be clear to everyone the information proves “sins” or “discretions”, nor will it force the church to eat crow or apologize for anything. More likely, the apologetic arguments will be put out there, that these practices were about sealing families together in the eternities and not about sex, with a whole bunch of “I don’t know we teach that” for the gray areas or sketchy stuff.
At the end of the day, the information will be put out there for people to make of it what they will. Faithful members will have a better chance digesting it now that it comes from church sources and see it as a non-issue, and anti-mormon people will try to use it to prove JS was a scoundral, which since they already believe that will be no news to anyone.
It is a good step in a good direction. For me, I doubt it solves any issues. But I like the approach better than secrecy, and it should help reduce some shock members may have when they stumble across these things from outside the church and possibly feel betrayed by not hearing it from the Church.
I am hoping they church sees the wisdom in this approach, and continues to open its vaults.
Heber13 wrote:I don’t think it will be clear to everyone the information proves “sins” or “discretions”, nor will it force the church to eat crow or apologize for anything.
I’m not looking for crow-eating or an apology. That’s throwing our ancestors under the bus, and it’s not appropriate. But will the church continue to force polygamy-as-doctrine on us by squelching anyone who think it was just a mistake, plain and simple, and hates the spector of its return on principle? My negative reaction to past polygamy is heavily influenced by the church’s present insistence that the noxious language in Section 132 is God’s.
Getting back to the wording. How come the church never uses that kind of wording with other things in church history? For example. 1. BY looking like JS as he asserted his prophetic mantel : Documents suggest that Brigham Youngâs face apparently looked like Joseph Smith. One journal reportedly showed this change, but there are few sources that back this up.
2. Documents suggest that William Marsh left the church because of a disagreement over milk. One journal reportedly said that he was upset over how his wife was treated, but a survey of other sources show a much more complex reason for him leaving the church.
It appears that when the history puts church leaders in a bad light, then words like âsuggest, apparentlyâ and reportedlyâ are used. You never see these when the church writes about the first vision, the translation of the BofA, the restoration of the MP, etc. When they are faith promoting, they are presented as facts.
A first good step, but a long way to go.
As I watch these events play out – everything from the internet (which is like the Guttenberg bible), to the church needing to respond – I try to imagine the challenge it is for them. To my knowledge – many of the present top guns probably didn’t contribute to the problem. Some of them, maybe, but the knot was created years before, and it seems that attempts have been made by other historians and so on to push out the info.
But what do you do when your handed a mess you didn’t create? How do you choose which route is the best. You know you will lose people whichever direction you go.It’s a bit of a Sword of Damocles. I know as a parent I find myself in similar situations and it’s not as easy as I imagine.
I am not trying to excuse the errors made. My first inclination of the challenge came from talking to the church historian over Joseph Smith. I had called him on the phone to discuss Joseph’s polygamy. He was very helpful and straightforward. But his last line was revelatory, “I wish they would explain this, it would make things so much easier.” Clearly from his chair he had been battling it for a long time.
For me, I have chosen to boil down my commitment to the religion, based on my spirit experiences. The rest is just too messy.
Thank you, mom3. That is a valuable perspective to have in a discussion like this. It’s great the church posted the papers.To the men of the church that this knowledge of (sexual) polyandry by the prophet has caused them to pause and wonder why did it happen and could it happen again….well welcome to the discomfort/anguish along with the mental gymnastics that the women of the church have been doing since the institution of polygamy. Sucks doesn’t it feeling like your sexual autonomy is not your own and for the sake of your eternal salvation you better accept what you are told to do even if that means sharing your wife. Welcome to the lightbulb moment of how lds women feel with the continued threat and use of DC 132 by the modern church. Suddenly the answer of “oh well it will all work out in the next life” isn’t so comforting is it? I always chuckle when lds guys get in such an uproar over the polyandry of JS but are aok with polygamy. Why is it acceptable for the women of the church to suffer polygamy but not the men polyandry? A little hypocritical much? That being said I am glad the information is out so people will not be so blown away when they learn that the Sunday school lessons they were taught dont quite match up with the facts. If the church would simply say “hey we messed up on the polygamy thing in an attempt to understand eternal sealings. It won’t be practiced in the next life unless desired by the parties involved oh and we will be sealing women to multiple husbands as well if they remarry in this life and you all can work it out after you die. ” Great, end of the polygamy debate, move on. mom3 wrote:
For me, I have chosen to boil down my commitment to the religion, based on my spirit experiences.mom3, could you elaborate on what exactly you mean about your commitment based on your spirit experiences? I think I understand what you are saying, but wanted to hear more about that from you.
Afterall- I will try to answer this. I knew when I wrote it, it seemed ambiguous, but it was the best wording I could find. I also want to reiterate that I didn’t mean spiritual experiences. I really did mean spirit. Viktor Frankl, was a holocaust survivor as well as a doctor. During his interment he used his medical curiosity to study the lives and lessons of the camps. In his final analysis, found in his book
Man’s Search for Meaninghe stated that yes there were only two races (nationalities if you will), but they were not Aryan vs. non- Aryan, instead they were the race of good and evil that dwell inside each human being. In short that is the spirit that I am referring to. I believe after long watchful and pondering years, that it is our individual good or bad – that create the ultimate truth. And every one of us knows truth.
I confess that prior to the faith experience I’ve had, I leaned on traditional LDS practices as a strong marker for my daily specifics, but even then I knew better, nobler, more righteous individuals existed outside the framework of our religion. From them I was reminded what the most important truths are, every time, with out fail, they boil down to the first two great commandments – to Love God with All My Heart, and to Love Everyone Else Like I want to Be Loved.
This is my “spirit experience”. Will I follow those gut instincts that guide me to act daily in a way that exemplifies the top two standards. Because according to scripture, everything else hangs on those.
This spirit experience, though is not easy, it requires that I honestly answer my truth about the motivations that lead to my actions, my verbal responses, even the looks on my faces.
This thread is a discussion of an event that played out years ago, it’s actions or inactions have not affected my mortal life. Even if I am the great-great-great grandchild of a polygamist relationship, it is not mine now. I am not comfortable with idea of polygamy, but there are nations alive to day where it is regularly practiced, if I’d grown up with it, would I think differently. I don’t know. Was Joseph Smith honest, truthful, accurate about how it came to be – I don’t know. But I know that God knows and the two of them will work it out. All the issues of Mormon History have no bearing on my access to God. Nor do they effect the good or bad in me and my actions of that spirit.
I hope this makes sense – and my apologies if it comes off like a lecture. I can get real impassioned.
I told my wife about the polyandry and she said “OK, so he screwed up, what’s the big deal — he was just a man!”. I’m really surprised at her reaction. Not even sure what to write, other than I feel really surprised that an essentially TBM like this would brush it off. Perhaps because it attacks her central beliefs, she is able to brush it off — for the good of the rest of her beliefs.
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