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Old-Timer wrote:
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 agree with Ray on this one. I read the article thinking, “So you wrote an open letter to the church leadership that went ignored. Now you are doubling down by writing an open letter to the church members trying to get them to act in defiance of the leadership? Let me know how that works out for you.”
Then I saw who the author was and it made more sense.
Like I said, “without offputting baggage” and, I’ll add, demeanor. I wish the Trib op-ed had just called attention to the fact that this material is being covered in seminary this week, and highlighted the most objectionable, from her point of view, aspects of the manual’s lesson. And left it at that. That would have been alright, I assume. My being surprised might not be justified. The Van Allen situation might be over nothing but the blog post. I forgot, as mentioned in an earlier comment, that this is BYU-Idaho. That is not a normal Mormon world.
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.
To me, the article takes up a premise that is not a great foundation for action: that JS married teenaged girls. Now, I’m not saying that I’m happy about it. I think I’m on fairly well-known grounds and a staunch anti-polygamist. But there are two flaws in the whole argument:1 – JS seemed to think of the unions more as spiritual (next-life) than here-and-now arrangements. I’m not saying ‘only’ but ‘more’. There is good evidence that JS did have sexual relations in some of his polygamous marriages, but there is also very good evidence that JS didn’t have as much sex in those marriages as is easy to assume. JS and Emma had four children who lived to adulthood, including David Hyrum, born in Nauvoo. Yet, there are no known children or descendants from the over 30 other “marriages”. We use the word “marriage” and we apply our construct to it, but we don’t really know what was going on there, and I think it is very safe to say that JS’s “marriages” were very unlike ours today, or even like BY or other polygamists. My own belief is that most of JS’s marriages were a ceremony for the next life and then done. With all this in mind, there is no evidence that JS had sex with any under-aged girls; only assumptions based on the way we think of “marriage”.
2 – Marrying much-younger girls was common in those days. I have ancestors, not polygamists, where the age difference would make our heads spin today. Martin Luther was 41 when he married a 26-year-old nun. Although Romeo was old enough for sword-fighting against adults, Juliet was only 13. The legal marrying age in the State of Illinois in the early 1840’s was 10. I’m very glad that it’s not that way anymore, but every one of us is the offspring of pedophiles if we choose to apply our social mores to times past.
For my part, I choose to stay away from the pedophile argument when it comes to JS. I don’t think it works well, and I think it is exactly the swing-for-the-fences type of attack that the Church cannot answer in a way that will ever satisfy. Instead, I think the Church can label polygamy as a sincere, but ill-advised attempt to attain a lifestyle that God was known to approve of in the ancient past; that it was not from God and that it caused a lot of heartache. I believe the Church can do this, move on, and shake off the polygamy dust, but I don’t think the Church can be so specific as to point out marriages to under-aged girls as a mistake without killing the patient, so to speak. I just think that is a non-starter. That kind of language only works as an attack to bring down the Church, not as a way-ahead for the Church. If we want to help the Church to progress, we can’t paint the Church into those types of corners.
On Own Now wrote:
I believe the Church can do this, move on, and shake off the polygamy dust, butI don’t think the Church can be so specific as to point out marriages to under-aged girls as a mistake without killing the patient, so to speak. I just think that is a non-starter. That kind of language only works as an attack to bring down the Church, not as a way-ahead for the Church. If we want to help the Church to progress, we can’t paint the Church into those types of corners. Do you think it would kill the patient to make a clear statement that this church will not ever again practice polygamy? I really don’t think that people would be so obsessed with Joseph’s doings if we would construct a firewall to separate us from it. There needs to be a meeting in the middle. The past would be easier to drop if they would reframe the future.
Ann wrote:Do you think it would kill the patient to make a clear statement that this church will not ever again practice polygamy?
I really don’t think that people would be so obsessed with Joseph’s doings if we would construct a firewall to separate us from it.There needs to be a meeting in the middle. The past would be easier to drop if they would reframe the future.
I totally agree. In fact, this is what I hope for. And, no, I don’t think it would kill the patient. Often, I think people worry that the Church can’t disavow polygamy without admitting that the whole Church is not inspired by God. I don’t see it that way at all. We already don’t live polygamy. We don’t live the Law of Consecration, have our own alphabet or our own money, we’ve dropped Zionism, we don’t have a Presiding Patriarch or a local Quorum of Seventy, we don’t have a ward budget, we accept every ethnicity into the priesthood and temple. I think the Church is actually fairly flexible in those ways because of the “continuing revelation” construct; it may take a very long time to get there, but if the Church lays out a new order, people will accept it and glorify God. I think being able to once-and-for-all drop polygamy would revitalize a lot of people. Acknowledging that one infamous component of Mormonism as not from God would be much easier to swallow than acceptance of polygamy itself.LookingHard wrote:
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.
I didn’t take any offence to it at all, I totally understand your stance on this. I just can’t quite figure out how to approach it exactly and dont want to completely confuse teenage kids. So, I’m not 100% sure i am skipping it, I have 1 week to decide since I teach the lesson next tuesday and 1 week to decide how I will teach it if I do. I am seriously repulsed by polygamy now and struggle with talking about it. I just talked to my TBM mother about it and i was surprised at how well she took it. She said that the prophet can’t lead us astray, I asked her what she thought about the priesthood change and the essays on that. She thought for a moment and said, well I don’t have an answer to that. So I said, could they possibly have gotten polygamy wrong? Is it okay if I question that? She agreed that maybe it was okay to wonder and then she said that she was certain we will get answers really soon for that and she will look forward to it. The most open minded conversation i have ever had with her regarding the prophets getting revelation wrong. Win for mom today and win for me! Maybe having half the family leave the church is really good for my family??? Hmmm, this just led me to maybe think I could have a great discussion with the kids about revelation and what fallible really means??
On Own Now, I agree that not all of JS’s unions were sexual, but some were (and we will skip over the part about the justification that polygamy was to “increase seed”). But even if we look past that, there were still issues caused by this marriage. I believe it was the 14 year old that wrote in her journal how sad she was that she couldn’t go to any of the youth dances as she was a married woman. I am sure it was not limited to dances. If there was never any sex, then it was asking a 14 year old to be celibate for the rest of their life. You be the judge if that is right or wrong, but regardless – that is hard thing and I don’t know if a 14 year old really even can have enough knowledge to truly consent to such. I agree that people sometimes married much earlier in the past. My grandmother even mentioned that one of her friends was about 14 and they had to go get her to get ready for her marriage, but she was distracted “playing house” with the other girls. But I think I have read that it was by no means common and a 30+ year old and a 14 year old marry. Not that it never happened, but it was quite rare. We still have it today where there are huge age differences, but often those are assumed to be gold-diggers.
Ann wrote:On Own Now wrote:
I believe the Church can do this, move on, and shake off the polygamy dust, butI don’t think the Church can be so specific as to point out marriages to under-aged girls as a mistake without killing the patient, so to speak. I just think that is a non-starter. That kind of language only works as an attack to bring down the Church, not as a way-ahead for the Church. If we want to help the Church to progress, we can’t paint the Church into those types of corners. Do you think it would kill the patient to make a clear statement that this church will not ever again practice polygamy? I really don’t think that people would be so obsessed with Joseph’s doings if we would construct a firewall to separate us from it. There needs to be a meeting in the middle. The past would be easier to drop if they would reframe the future.
I agree. We have President Hinckley saying, “It isn’t doctrine” and we have people today being told if they don’t take down web pages professing polygamy isn’t doctrine that they will be having a church court. If you go over to feminist Mormon housewives and either on the blog or the podcasts, I have come to realized what the prospect of the doctrine that in the celestial kingdom polygamy is required places some extreme emotional stress on some women. That could be just about entirely erased with a few sentences from the first presidency.LookingHard wrote:I agree that not all of JS’s unions were sexual, but some were (and we will skip over the part about the justification that polygamy was to “increase seed”). But even if we look past that, there were still issues caused by this marriage. I believe it was the 14 year old that wrote in her journal how sad she was that she couldn’t go to any of the youth dances as she was a married woman. I am sure it was not limited to dances. If there was never any sex, then it was asking a 14 year old to be celibate for the rest of their life. You be the judge if that is right or wrong, but regardless – that is hard thing and I don’t know if a 14 year old really even can have enough knowledge to truly consent to such.
Exactly right. Hey, nobody is more sickened by polygamy as I am. It was awful on so many fronts. The worst is that JS MAY have married under-aged girls for sex. But that is something we don’t know and will never know. So, I can’t get behind rhetoric that assumes it, as is the case with the article in the trib, referenced above. I think there are plenty of first-rate reasons to disavow polygamy, and I think it doesn’t take open letters to seminary teachers to get to that point. I believe that most rank-and-file members of the Church already see it as a failure, so the leap wouldn’t be large. The problem with the pedophile argument is that it basically says to the Church, “We won’t forgive you… not ever… you have to do serious jail time and then register as a sex offender for the rest of time.” I don’t see that as a productive approach to the issue. If we want to be proponents of disavowing polygamy, we have to do it with respectful dialog, not open letters, accusing the Church of accessory after the fact.I believe polygamy was a massive error. I believe it caused untold sorrow. I believe that today it contributes to the subjugation of women simply by positioning women as sidekicks in the eternal scheme, who are equal in name only, but who are clearly less important to God and the Church. Those are reasons enough for me to hope that the Church disavows it; I don’t need to sensationalize it with accusations that can’t be backed up.
If I were to write an open letter to the Church or its teachers, which I won’t, I would say something like, “Although I believe that JS was a person of great devotion, intellect, and vision, it’s also clear that he made mistakes along the way. One of his great strengths was pushing the envelope and constantly moving forward. Yet, while striving to do that, he introduced plural marriage as a doctrine of the Church, and I believe that was a mistake that should finally and fully be rectified. The Church made steps to suspend plural marriage in this life with the Manifesto, but significant consequences persist today in the minds of many, many members. While we no longer ‘practice’ plural marriage here, it remains part of our core doctrine as an attribute of the afterlife. This combines to create an environment where Church members can easily draw the conclusion that women and girls are inferior in the eyes of God to their male counterparts. Yet, our belief in a loving God belies that possibility. I ask the Church to consider the value of each of us as a Child of Heavenly Parents, and to set aside such damaging positions. Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants has an uncertain provenance. I specifically ask the Church to break this section into two parts, A and B, with Part A consisting of verses 1-33, which presents the doctrine of eternal marriage, and Part B consisting of verses 34-66, which presents the doctrine of plurality of wives – and then to put these two parts to the general membership of the Church for a vote as to whether they be accepted as doctrine of the Church.”
I believe that if we took that approach, we would not be forcing the Church into a defensive posture.
I read the last few paragraphs and John Lennon’s “Imagine” started playing in my mind.
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