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What does the sealing of sequential spouses living monogamously in mortality have to do with young, marriageable girls strong-armed into becoming the umpteenth wives of older men?
Nothing, except that one happened in the past but has stopped and one happens now – and I didn’t say or imply they are connected in any meaningful way other than that. However, sequential sealing in mortality is something with which I believe it is important to wrestle, since it is, theoretically, a form of potential post-mortal polyandry. I personally like the stance that the individuals involved will decide, with completely equal voices, what they want – and God will honor agency in the matter. I’m saying when people say polygamy still is taught and practiced in the Church, due to multiple temple sealings when spouses have died, they are comparing apples to tires in a very real way – especially since a woman now can be sealed to more than one husband.
Quote:Why do we talk about these things together?
I didn’t – but I would do so in order to
contrastthem (which is what I did implicitly in my other comment, when I mentioned finding historical polygamy repugnant, and what I just did above). Quote:Why is the former put up as justification for the latter?
I didn’t to that and never will. Anyone who does hasn’t thought through it enough, imho.
Finally, there is a HUGE difference between a justification and an explanation. It can be a fine line in some cases, but it is an important difference to me.
This is a great topic for discussion Ann. Like you, this really bothers me too. I do not believe in it. I do not condone it. It makes me physically sick to think about it too much. :sick: I just want to share that this week I listened to the ” A Thoughtful Faith” podcast featuring Kirk and his wife, and got the background story before I read his blog post. I highly recommend listening to it if you can. As a woman who has had to wrestle with the horrific thought of a possible eternity of sharing my husband, it was really comforting and refreshing to hear a man express how he decided to read Section 132 as if he were a woman, and it was heartbreaking. There was also a dream that Kirk had that also had a big part in why he did what he did. It was through this dream I believe he finally understood the reality of the pain that polygamy causes. I would share more, but “spoilers.”
Ray, I think I understand where you are coming from. You’re trying to find a way to balance it all in an approach that you feel is livable. I don’t have any complaint with that, because it is exactly what I do and how I do it on many other topics. If that works for you, I’m glad. I think I get your logic. Just by way of explanation, for me, I can’t do that on this particular topic. Polygamy (to me, and me alone) is such an outlier that I can’t approach it the same way I might with other issues. I look at polygamy and see only oppression, heartache, and disastrous consequences. Polygamy led directly to the death of JS and the forced exodus from Nauvoo into the wilderness. Polygamy relegated many many women to a life of loneliness devoid of what we would consider a romantic devoted partner and I assume a lot of depression. It also made for a lot of lonely men, by the way. A very common Utah-era construct was a home and family that consisted basically of a single mom with children, in which the man became primarily a figure head and provider, but without normal familial affections. My grandfather was a son of a polygamous marriage, and his take was that his father was so detached, that he essentially had to raise himself and figure it all out on his own. Did polygamy sometimes work and work well? Sure. Sometimes it did. Have all women then and now been against polygamy? No. Not all. But, in the large, I view polygamy as a massive failure and a disaster for the Church. Still today, when outsiders think of Mormonism, you know that the first thing that comes to their mind is “how can you be involved in such a kooky polygamy cult?”
So, then I start to think about what the Church could do to finally get the mud off if its boots. I realize fully that the Church isn’t going to see the need to do this anytime soon, and that those in a position of power are highly vested in a belief and acceptance that everything the Church has done, no matter how strange it seems to the outside world, is in fact the will of God. I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that it is because the General Authorities are all male, but rather because they are totally committed to the message of the Church, and if JS had said that all men should have the same haircut, they would do it and expect everyone else to do it, and would be defensive if questioned about it. If it weren’t sinful, I would bet money that if you polled the current members of the general boards of the RS, YW, and Primary, that every one of these women would also believe polygamy was from God and could give example after example of women who submitted to it – er – I mean – had faith to do as God commanded – and were blessed because of it. But, that doesn’t stop me. I still try to find ways the Church could make that transition. In my mind, I don’t see it as that difficult. It would only take an acknowledgement that JS, motivated by trying to get closer to godliness and by a desire to restore the highest ideals of the Old Testament Covenant People, experimented with polygamy, but that it wasn’t from God… that we don’t believe it… that we don’t teach it, and that we are now going to remove the associated texts from our scriptures (and in deference to you, we’ll still make the verses available in an appendix somewhere for context). I’m sure that there would be some people that would find that hard to take, but I also believe that the vast majority would either shrug their shoulders and say “OK” or would jump for joy and feel a huge burden lifted from their shoulders. Will that happen? Yes, I believe it will, someday. Not this GC, not this decade, maybe not this century, but I believe it will have to happen at some point.
In the meantime, I do basically what you do, with a little bit of variance; I try to find a way to put it into a compartment and not let it overtake the many good qualities of the Church and its people. It’s just for me that the box that contains polygamy isn’t as airtight as some of my other boxes, and the lid doesn’t quite fit.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:What does the sealing of sequential spouses living monogamously in mortality have to do with young, marriageable girls strong-armed into becoming the umpteenth wives of older men?
Nothing, except that one happened in the past but has stopped and one happens now – and I didn’t say or imply they are connected in any meaningful way other than that. However, sequential sealing in mortality is something with which I believe it is important to wrestle, since it is, theoretically, a form of potential post-mortal polyandry. I personally like the stance that the individuals involved will decide, with completely equal voices, what they want – and God will honor agency in the matter.
I’m saying when people say polygamy still is taught and practiced in the Church, due to multiple temple sealings when spouses have died, they are comparing apples to tires in a very real way– especially since a woman now can be sealed to more than one husband. What happens when we take multiple spouses out of the conversation. It’s not like it hasn’t been an obvious puzzle for all time. People will have things to work out hereafter.
I think multiple spouses, temple policies, etc., are clouding and obscuring the fact that we haven’t taken mortal polygamy off the table. “When people say polygamy still is
taught,” they’re right. The church presents girls a whatever and whenever God commands scenario. And leaves them to connect the dots. It’s going to happen to thousands of them this month in seminary. And the church is fine with it. On Own Now:
Quote:So, then I start to think about what the Church could do to finally get the mud off if its boots. I realize fully that the Church isn’t going to see the need to do this anytime soon, and that those in a position of power are highly vested in a belief and acceptance that everything the Church has done, no matter how strange it seems to the outside world, is in fact the will of God. I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that it is because the General Authorities are all male, but rather because they are totally committed to the message of the Church, and if JS had said that all men should have the same haircut, they would do it and expect everyone else to do it, and would be defensive if questioned about it. If it weren’t sinful, I would bet money that if you polled the current members of the general boards of the RS, YW, and Primary, that every one of these women would also believe polygamy was from God and could give example after example of women who submitted to it – er – I mean – had faith to do as God commanded – and were blessed because of it.
So, maybe it’s going to take people
outsideof the Mormon power corridor having vision, dreaming dreams…. Like the van Allens and many more like them. From RiverSong:
Quote:There was also a dream that Kirk had that also had a big part in why he did what he did. It was through this dream I believe he finally understood the reality of the pain that polygamy causes.
Quote:This just in: Mormons are still weird
:lolno: I like Ray’s stance that all parties involved in plural marriage in the hereafter will do so because they all WANT to. 
Women and men alike.
Now then, someone earlier said that we should get rid of section 133 altogether.
While this seems easy and would solve the polygamy debate, it also removes one of the main selling points of our faith…eternal marriage. Removing the section is problematic for this who still believe in temple sealing.
I can’t find another scriptural stance on eternal marriage.
Any answers there?
QuestionAbound wrote:I like Ray’s stance that all parties involved in plural marriage in the hereafter will do so because they all WANT to.
Women and men alike.
Now then, someone earlier said that we should get rid of section 133 altogether.
While this seems easy and would solve the polygamy debate, it also removes one of the main selling points of our faith…eternal marriage. Removing the section is problematic for this who still believe in temple sealing.
I can’t find another scriptural stance on eternal marriage.
Any answers there?
The whole section doesn’t need to be removed. We could maintain the eternal marriage “doctrine” and take polygamy out of the picture by removing just part of Section 132.
DarkJedi wrote:QuestionAbound wrote:I like Ray’s stance that all parties involved in plural marriage in the hereafter will do so because they all WANT to.
Women and men alike.
Now then, someone earlier said that we should get rid of section 133 altogether.
While this seems easy and would solve the polygamy debate, it also removes one of the main selling points of our faith…eternal marriage. Removing the section is problematic for this who still believe in temple sealing.
I can’t find another scriptural stance on eternal marriage.
Any answers there?
The whole section doesn’t need to be removed. We could maintain the eternal marriage “doctrine” and take polygamy out of the picture by removing just part of Section 132.
Good idea. It would be interesting to see how the powers that be would justify doing it.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/2335798-155/op-ed-think-seminary-teachers-before-acceding I’m wondering what you all think of this letter to the sltrib. I can imagine a lot of the negative things that could be said about her approach. But maybe the internet has afforded the average member a real voice for a reason.
Ann wrote:http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/2335798-155/op-ed-think-seminary-teachers-before-acceding I’m wondering what you all think of this letter to the sltrib. I can imagine a lot of the negative things that could be said about her approach. But maybe the internet has afforded the average member a real voice for a reason.
What I think is that she’s not long for the church so she better get her visiting teaching done.
identifying herself as being on the board of Ordain Women is a surefire way to be dismissed. It’s almost like saying to most members, Quote:“Anyone want an apostate view on this?”
I wish the Money SLTrib letter had been worded differently. I’m still waiting for a hero – someone without offputting baggage who can speak everyone’s language and trigger a transition on this issue that isn’t unnecessarily hurtful. How will this end? Is the church going to discipline (it looks like things are moving ahead with the Van Allens)
everyonewho writes a negative blog or Facebook post about 132? Maybe they’ll say, No, just the ones that are popular and garnering attention. What if it’s a different one every month, and then two a month? Quote:Is the church going to discipline (it looks like things are moving ahead with the Van Allens) everyone who writes a negative blog or Facebook post about 132?
No.
There have been numerous things written that haven’t caused any official reaction whatsoever – and, as I said earlier, I would be surprised if the Van Allen situation is only about that one blog post.
Well, I have decided to skip the lesson with my seminary kids. We are going to do their learning assessments that day and I am going to ask them if they have any questions regarding this weeks study. If they ask, I will answer them honestly. I may even say I don’t really agree with it. President Hinkley said polygamy wasn’t doctrinal and I am going with that. Hopefully I don’t get an angry parent. Or the kids might not even notice we skipped polygamy. I could also end up going by the seat of my pants. I will definitely let you guys know if anything fun happens. I wish I was brave enough to take on this issue publicly. I do not want to have any church discipline problems or family problems because of it. Both my family and my DH’s family come from polygamists. So a little touchy. But, I am very firm on it in my mind. I give a little silent cheer when someone takes it on for me. I just wish we could stop performing all second sealings even if you lose a spouse. If it isn’t doctrinal and things can be fixed in heaven, let’s let God fix it all later. I’m pretty sure we can do sealings in the millennium so let’s do all the polygamy stuff then if it is actually supposed to happen. (I might have vomited in my mouth thinking it’s possible).
slowlylosingit wrote:Well, I have decided to skip the lesson with my seminary kids. We are going to do their learning assessments that day and I am going to ask them if they have any questions regarding this weeks study. If they ask, I will answer them honestly. I may even say I don’t really agree with it. President Hinkley said polygamy wasn’t doctrinal and I am going with that. Hopefully I don’t get an angry parent. Or the kids might not even notice we skipped polygamy. I could also end up going by the seat of my pants. I will definitely let you guys know if anything fun happens.
I wish I was brave enough to take on this issue publicly. I do not want to have any church discipline problems or family problems because of it. Both my family and my DH’s family come from polygamists. So a little touchy. But, I am very firm on it in my mind. I give a little silent cheer when someone takes it on for me. I just wish we could stop performing all second sealings even if you lose a spouse. If it isn’t doctrinal and things can be fixed in heaven, let’s let God fix it all later. I’m pretty sure we can do sealings in the millennium so let’s do all the polygamy stuff then if it is actually supposed to happen. (I might have vomited in my mouth thinking it’s possible).
I have mixed feelings on skipping it. I can agree to skip it giving it as is, but I worry about not giving any references is going to bite some of these kids in the next decades of their life.SlowlyLoosingIt – I am not poking at YOU not giving this. I get that it is HARD HARD HARD and we shouldn’t be forcing people to do things that are totally repulsive to them.
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