- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
or 6) they don’t have the cajones because of a perception of a potential backlash. Sorry, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to post on this thread but it kinda got threadjacked by heber so I jumped in.
😆 Sorry to throw you under the bus Heber, we got the “why don’t they be straight with us” thread going under the “pr obfuscation” banner.
Look at me, a self-appointed little junior moderator.
🙄 🙄 😆 Did any of you see the special Oprah had earlier this year where she interviewed the polygamous wives and children in Texas? It was quite interesting. It seemed obvious to me that there was jealousy between the wives and they admitted to it but just talked about the need to overcome selfishness. Everything was arranged to make a good impression for the show. I wish Oprah had asked the wives the following question: “You say you believe in the bible and scripture which says that the purpose of life is to become like God (which they said was the purpose).” Well, if God says He is a jealous God and shall have no other gods before him then ‘jealousy is a god like attribute and so there should only be one wife and one husband. I went to Nauvoo last week for the pagent and saw these statues of JS and Emma in various places. My first thought was, “Where’s the statues of his other wives? Aren’t they important? Especially since Emma ended up leaving the church and starting a break off church. I remember when I was in the LTM trying to learn the discussions in German. One evening the LTM’s mission president’s wife spoke to us sister missionaries at our living quarters while we were in our pj’s. She told us how she and her husband met. She was a sister missionary in S. America and her husband was the LTM mission president at the time with his first wife. The first wife died and after this sister missionary returned from her mission, she and the mission president dated and fell deeply in Love even though she was much younger than him. She was preparing everything for her 1st wedding and was so excited when one of the 12 apostles at the time who was related to this mission president told her to stop making such a fuss over her wedding as she was only going to be a 2nd wife. Well, she made it real clear to us sister missionaries that evening that general authorities have their biases and weaknesses and to stand up for ourselves in the mission field if we saw something was wrong that a priesthood leader was doing. She said she had a testimony of the gospel and if a GA said, “thus saith the Lord’ he may be inspired but they are just human like the rest of us otherwise. I loved this woman and will never forget this.
History is a difficult thing because we weren’t there and do not know all the details. People have mis-judged me plenty with just bits and pieces of information about my past. So, generally I put alot of stuff on the back burner. My brother married a woman who was sealed to her first husband who died after 14 year of marriage with no kids. My brother and this woman had one son together and have been married 30 years now. Both husbands love her and want her for eternity and she wants both of them. I see nothing wrong with this if all agree. I love my husband and we are sealed together but he has hardly ever wanted sex and my therapist thinks he may be gay. I would be thrilled to have a second husband the past 20 years and I think my husband would be fine with that. So life is not so black and white and very complicated.
bridget_night wrote:So life is not so black and white and very complicated.
This quote should be the official motto/slogan for staylds.com!!!
Thanks bridget!!
At the time that polygamy was practiced, women suffered from severe poverty and social inequality if they were widowed. There was no Social Security. Banks had failed. The Civil War was looming.
The plight of widows and orphans was usually poverty to the point of starvation and death. Thousands of men were going to be killed in the impending civil war. The government was broke from fighting the civil war. The South was devastated.
The early Latterday Saints escaped the civil war by heading westward to Utah in 1847, Utah was not a State at that time. Widowed women and children were taken in by “husbands” who bore legal, spiritual and financial responsibility for them. The social status of women who said, Brigham Young is my husband, was much better than women who had no husbands.
Back then, orphans were sold as slaves, Widowed women were often forced into prostitution or were slaves because they couldn’t pay their debts. My great, great grandmothers survived because of the protection afforded by polygamy. These large families became the “social welfare system” of the civil war and post civil war era. Infant mortality was greatly reduced, starvation due to poverty was eliminated. Prostitution was gone. Crime was down. Orphaned children were able to spend their days in the classroom instead of working as servants.
I, for one, am grateful for Polygamy.
Hate to point out the obvious, but you can take care of the widows without having sex with them. Do we really know how many widows were polygamous wives of Joseph? Brigham? Woodruff? I’ll have to look but I believe the percetage is very small. I thank God Almighty that woman are no longer seen (by most) as property in a marriage.
Prostitution was alive and well in Utah. Death from Civil War was a non-issue. There were
moremen than women on the census records for every census. D&C 132 doesn’t say that polygamy is to aleviate poverty. It says it is required for exaltation and salvation. That is my beef.
I have been thinking about this topic alot lately. I have pondered all the different opinions, scripture, etc, and I was quite surprised at the conclusion that I came to, considering my TBMness. Keep in mind, this is MY conclusion, and each person has to come to their own. I believe that Jospeh was a prophet, but I have concluded that he was NOTacting as a prophet when he instituted polygamy. Nothing adds up, and here are my reasons: 1) Book of Mormon teaches against polygamy.
2) Angel with sword? Come on, angels do not have bodies. How could an angel be toting a sword?
3) Angel with sword, part 2. If God wanted to threaten Joseph with destruction, did he really need to send an angel with a sword? How many accounts do we have where God was displeased with Joseph and chastened him personally?
4) Mary, the mother of Jesus. When the angel came to Mary to inform her that she had “found favor with God” and that she was to be the mother of the Messiah, she humbly agreed to her role in this amazing event. But, Mary was engaged to Joseph. When she was found to be pregnant, Joseph was encouraged to “put her away privily”.
God sent a messenger to Joseph, in a dream, explaining what was going on. Joseph was not forced to rely on Mary for an explanation. Likewise, IMO, Emma would certainly have been entitled to a personal visit from a Heavenly messenger. 5) THE ABSOLUTE INEQUITY. I am not even speaking of the inequity between men and women in polygamy. I am talking about the basic robbery and damnation of countless good, righteous, MARRIABLE men. Each plural wife represents an unmarried, lonely man. What was/is to become of these men? They have been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. They have been taught that their priesthood is not complete without a wife. They have been warned that their exaltation will not be complete without an eternal companion. They’ve heard that if they are single in Heaven they will “serve” those who have mates. No offense, but that is a crappy deal, any way you look at it.
6) The deception. Its what we DO that matters, not what we say.
I did not include in my ponderings the impact of polygamy on the women, because there are so many pluses and minuses. I just wanted to look at the basic premise, the logistics, the why’s and how’s. I just cannot come to any kind of conclusion that paints Joseph in a sympathetic light. This does not change my opinion that he was a prophet. But it does strengthen my opinion that he was also a man, with all the failings that go along with being human. It is not my intent to be disrespectful to anyone, but this is the conclusion I have come to. Our second article of faith states that “men will be punished for their own sins”, and from what I have concluded, polygamy is punishment for men who have commited no sin. I just can’t find that to be God’s plan for His children. I have a son. I also have 2 daughters. I can find nothing in polygamy that I would consider of value for any of them.
Interesting discussion. If I could interject just a few comments in Brother Joseph’s defense… “1) Book of Mormon teaches against polygamy.”
It does indeed, but I submit that it is addressing a people who had fell into wickedness at that time…not everyone.
“2) Angel with sword? Come on, angels do not have bodies. How could an angel be toting a sword?”
We can only assume that this is a resurrected being being referred to. If I could share just a couple of instances of sword-toting angels….
To Balaam and his donkey:
Numbers 22:23 And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
v31 Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
To David:
1 Chronicles 21:16 And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
v27 And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
v30 But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord
Etc, Etc…
There’s too much to address in blog format but, if I could respectfully submit, Joseph Smith was put in a heck of a situation. He did the best he could under the circumstances IMHO.
I agree that things don’t seem to “add up” using our 21st century monogamous values. The question may be..do we hold God to our values and traditions?
Just sayin….
mileage may vary…
pinkpatent wrote:2) Angel with sword? Come on, angels do not have bodies. How could an angel be toting a sword?
“angels do not have bodies”? Where do you get that?HiJolly
Bruce, I SO appreciated you posting on this board. I love learning your point of view. I do not always agree with you, but I find you to be very sincere. I also find your story to be fascinating. Thanks for pointing out the instances of angels with swords. I can accept that if an angel in the old testament had a sword, an angel visiting Joseph Smith could have one.
HiJolly,
I guess I was projecting my own ideas of angels into my conclusion that angels don’t have bodies of flesh and bone. I guess I think of angels as spirits that have either not yet received a body, or have not yet been resurrected. I admit this is an assumption on my part, so just as with Bruce, I can be open minded on that point.
This does not change my conclusion. But I am so grateful to you both for pointing out some possible holes in my reasoning. I love learning and I cannot learn if people don’t share what they know.
Thanks!
Kinderhook08 said….I believe they don’t talk about it because of exactly what happened to me and others like me. They don’t want to rock the boat and the majority of people are never going to dig deep enough to find out about polyandry and other controversial aspects of their LDS faith. A few like myself stumble onto things like Mormon Stories and then our curiosity is peaked. We start to read from other sources and it all goes down hill from there. Over the last forty years I have stumbled onto things, been offered things to read, started reading things, listened to things people were saying etc. And have learned to disern when I was getting into something that was faith distroying. The assault on a LDS’s testimony is growing daily. I heard a speaker once who had been set apart to help recover excommunicated members. He was given a blessing that false doctrine and faith distroying material would not trouble him. Those of us who have not received such a blessing must rely on other gifts. There is such a thing as having a questioning mind that leads to faith in the restoration, and one that pulls us away. I pray for help in keeping what little faith I have. It would be a misery to lose my slender gleam of light, and that might be part of the answer, a weakened faith brings unhappiness, we can ask God to help us get it back.
hawkgrrrl wrote:When you consider the actions and rhetoric (and utter lack thereof) in the current church on this topic, I’m left to conclude that the Q12 have nothing edifying, pertinent or necessary to say on this topic. This could be for any of many possible reasons: 1) it was never an inspired practice, 2) it was only inspired in a different time and circumstance and is no longer relevant for us today or 3) they don’t understand the theological significance of it and have no clear answer to provide or 4) they lack consensus on this topic.
Well said, Hawkgrrl. While 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive, 3 and 4 could very well be reasons that are a result of either 1 or 2.The David O McKay Rise of Modern Mormonism gave great examples of how there can be lack of consensus among the FP adn Q12 in personal belief, even if they all become unified in the approach to handle it in the public.
It is likely that since it doesn’t apply to us today, it is not something that is discussed. It would likely raise more questions than answer questions if details were openly taught in Church history classes, simply because we don’t know why Joseph did what he did, except that he felt he was told to.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.