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On Own Now wrote:
For the sake of argument, let’s say the Church came out with the following hypothetical Official Declaration 3:
“In the early days of the Church, Joseph Smith attempted to coalesce the doctrine of eternal marriage with the reality that many would be married more than once in this life. He came to believe and to preach that eternal marriages could be performed between a righteous man and more than one woman. Later prophets, including Brigham Young, followed the teachings faithfully, and polygamy grew to become a major characteristic of the Church. In 1890, the Church officially ceased the practice of polygamy. We now declare that while Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other faithful leaders of the time tried to mesh their lives with the principles that they learned from God, that polygamy itself is not a doctrine of the gospel. We declare that a man should have one spouse and that a woman should have one spouse, and that it will be so in the eternities.”
I think you’ve expressed it very well.I would have one issue, however. We really don’t know what is going to happen in those cases when a spouse dies and the widow[er] remarries. It would be a lot simpler to simply let the marriage go forward as an eternal marriage, with the caveat that such things will be sorted out in the resurrection. same deal with divorces. I believe the sealing ordinance should be a thing offered, not imperatively observed.
So if a woman remarries, let her remarry for time and all eternity. If a man remarries, same deal. who knows what will happen? we don’t that’s for sure.
On Own Now wrote:I guess that’s it for me… I don’t feel that the church would completely fall apart…For the sake of argument, let’s say the Church came out with the following hypothetical Official Declaration 3:
“…We now declare that while Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other faithful leaders of the time tried to mesh their lives with the principles that they learned from God, that polygamy itself is not a doctrine of the gospel. We declare that a man should have one spouse and that a woman should have one spouse, and that it will be so in the eternities.”
If the church came out with the above statement,
I do not believe that the church would collapse.On the contrary, I believe there would be a collective sigh of relief. In addition, I think such a position would help to stop the bleeding that the church will otherwise continue to experience, as members grapple with supposedly infallible leaders practicing such abhorrent “doctrines”…I point out the restriction on the priesthood (and temple) which ended in 1978. There were many who believed, supported and defended that principle with fervor, because they perceived it as coming from God. But now-a-days, it’s pretty common belief, even among TBMs, and even unofficial position of the church, that we aren’t sure why it started, but we have a feeling that it wasn’t specifically ordained of God… that it was a practice, rather than a doctrine.That has completely relegated the once embarrassing doctrine to nothing more than an embarrassing history, which we don’t have to apologize for (as much)… I wasn’t trying to say the Church will fall apart if they make a stronger statement denouncing polygamy than they have so far. Actually I think the complete reversal of the racial priesthood ban shows that they can easily make major changes without necessarily losing much support overall especially if the changes are seen as positive or somehow necessary by most active members. It looks like the most difficult part of this process is simply getting enough top Church leaders to agree that they should go ahead and make any significant changes.
The main point I was trying to make is that apologizing for individual points of controversy like polygamy will not really solve what I see as the bigger problems of relatively high costs of being an active Church member combined with serious credibility issues surrounding LDS prophets starting with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young because it looks like they have often acted like they knew what they were talking about when they really didn’t. Can the LDS Church admit that prophets and apostles could easily be wrong not just about a few things that have already been discontinued but also current doctrines about temples, tithing, the WoW, testimony, chastity, etc. without the Church completely falling apart?
I don’t know if it is possible or not for the LDS Church to openly recognize that prophets could easily be wrong about many current doctrines without falling apart. In fact, I think it is so uncomfortable for most top LDS Church leaders to seriously consider this idea that they are basically in a state of denial and will typically avoid honestly facing this possibility at almost all costs. I see M. Russell Ballard’s comment as more of the old “milk before meat” approach toward teaching the LDS gospel where he doesn’t necessarily believe that polygamy was simply Joseph Smith and Brigham Young acting on their own with no direction from God as much as simply thinking it will not help promote faith in the Church at this point for members/investigators that are supposedly vulnerable to be easily misled by what “the world” thinks.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:… Can the LDS Church admit that prophets and apostles could easily be wrong not just about a few things that have already been discontinued but also current doctrines about temples, tithing, the WoW, testimony, chastity, etc. without the Church completely falling apart?
…I don’t know if it is possible or not for the LDS Church to openly recognize that prophets could easily be wrong about many current doctrines without falling apart.
It would take a major shift from the leadership. I think they would have to embrace a bottom-up organization, rather than the top-down approach. They would also have to go back to Joseph’s early vision of religion that Brian talks about
MAN>GOD>Church, rather than the current LDS model of Man>CHURCH>God.I pray for that day.
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