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What IS the Current Church Position on Polygamy?
After the 2013 release, it appears the answer to this question is officially
Quote:The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7-8 and Jacob 2:27, 30).
See my latest post at W&T or my blog up tomorrow.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:The problem with coming out with an official statement that it wasn’t ever inspired to begin with and Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others were simply acting on their own is that this would draw more attention to the issue and directly cast serious doubts on the Church’s origins and the reliability of prophets in general. So my guess is that’s why they would rather just avoid facing the issue as much as possible and hope most active members don’t notice or worry too much about it. Some hardcore apologists don’t think polygamy was wrong at all and to be honest what always bothered me more than the idea of polygamy in general was simply the way it changed and when because I thought if they were right before then why did they change and if they were wrong before then why didn’t God step in and correct them sooner?
I agree DA – on another thread I compared what JS had done (if not God sanctioned) to adultery. It was replied that it is not as simple as to label it adultury because of JS’s possible motives etc. I get that it wasn’t simple lechery but isn’t this approach the same thing as saying that two unmarried people aren’t quite commiting fornication if they love and are commited to each other?
Believe me – I am completely willing to make that leap. I just don’t know that the black and white/right and wrong worldview of the majority of the membership can make the leap with me.
mormonheretic wrote:Quote:What IS the Current Church Position on Polygamy?
After the 2013 release, it appears the answer to this question is officially
Quote:The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7-8 and Jacob 2:27, 30).
See my latest post at W&T or my blog up tomorrow.
Agreed, but that only answers the in-this-life question… in other words policy, rather than doctrine.
I hope polygramy is not the way of life in eternality or heaven would not be heaven. I already strugglrnwithnthe idea that I’m still sealed to a guy I was pressured to marry almost a decade ago because it is for my “salvation’s sake”. I could have gotten my marriage annuled but it cost so much more than a divorce and i was very young and poor. It make me so frustrating because it makes things so much harder if I do get engaged to the love of my life and I would have to go through the process and hoping I can get my sealing cancelled in time to get sealed in the temple. Men can seal to more than one wives. I don’t know why the church practices this if polygramy is no longer the ” doctrine” There are 4 podcasts with Brian Hales available on Mormon Stories. He gives a pretty interesting, conservative position on polygamy, and he admits that much of the information is a bit weird. I highly recommend the interviews if you have a few hours. Brian is an interesting speaker. My great grandmother was married to two men, one was Joseph Smith, in Nauvoo when she was 14 then she married my great grandfather in Nauvoo in 1846 2 years after Joseph was killed. The marriage with Joseph was never consummated and they never lived together. As far as I know there was no temple divorce and she was sealed to my great grandfather. Of course this was in the early days of the Church and of polygamy. This is a slightly stale thread here, but I HAVE to mention something that so many others neglect…. I think that polyandry MIGHT be something that is allowed….
41 And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man,
and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed. so perhaps, if another man is “appointed” unto her, then she can have him. lol.
I eagerly look forward to the day when *I* can let another man bed me (in the name of religion, of course)!!
But I also wanted to point out this…
D&C is very poorly worded and structured. It seems to talk in circles. It isn’t clear…well, not very clear.
But this verse right here sealed the deal for me…
v. 61
And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a
virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adulterywith that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. Since JS married other married women, some explain the “virgin requirement” away by saying that a definition of “virgin” is one who is not a mother. Indeed, the 1828 Webster’s dictionary offers that as a “rare” definition. Why would the Lord use the
most rareusage of the word in something so obviously personal and emotional… a topic that He would have known would cause so much controversy? How about the “vowed to no other man” part? Riddle me that one? Did JS forget that one little rule when he married other married women?
Finally, how about the part of “he cannot commit adultery”? Some apologists say that JS didn’t have carnal relations with ALL of his wives…but I’m pretty sure that if he lusted after them he already committed adultery.
The whole section is clunky to me. It seems like the author is falling over himself to be understood…and the Lord would not need to do that. He would word something as important as this very carefully and very plainly and very clearly.
If the goal is to “raise up seed”…I rather think that many monogamous relationships are doing just that…”raising up seed”. I know I am with my family. I am raising a fantastic set of “seeds”.
quickly“, then I could understand it. But that isn’t what the scripture said. As has been said…does the first wife have to giver her consent or not? If the latter, then women have effectively been reduced to objects…and I’m not sure Heavenly Father wants us to feel that way.
It just doesn’t stand to reason that the Lord would institute something so eternal and so binding on the whole earth for such a short time…a few decades, really…and then it was gone again.
For me…I’m telling you that polyandry makes WAY more sense than polygyny. Hear me out…
More than one full-time wage earner.
More than one to do the honey-do list.
No more 39 kids running to greet one man as he walks in the door.
More protection for the family.
And the more intimate side is better this way. A woman requires less resolution time than a man does.
And…I could go on, but those reasons right there are enough for me.
And…I think it was President Uchtdorf who said that our Heavenly Father would not ask his daughters to do anything that was degrading or demeaning. I believe that. It is for that reason that I think that PM is NOT part of the Lord’s plan.
I think that the temples are still sealing men to multiple women b/c either they can’t stop such an out of control habit, or there really will be an
optionof creating worlds with more than one person. For sure I can see it as a possibility…whether with more than one husband or more than one wife. I can see partnerships forming like that. Someone reasoned PM in heaven by saying…”One Heavenly Mother couldn’t possibly mother an entire earth. There’s no way she could keep track of all of the spirit offspring. She would need help…cue multiple wives.”
I laughed at that.
1. Is there a time limit on creating spirits for a world? In the ETERNITIES, is there really a time frame that would necessitate multiple uteruses?
2. If Heavenly Mother is a Goddess…we would discount her status by saying that She couldn’t “handle” that many kids.
3. If a mother needs that much help with that many kids and needed to call in other mothers…wouldn’t it stand to reason that a father would need just as much help raising them and would need to call in other fathers?
Finally…is there sex in heaven? If not, then why would it matter if we were sealed to other people?
Just sayin’!
Good points “QuestionsAbound.” I especially like this one: QuestionAbound wrote:If Heavenly Mother is a Goddess…we would discount her status by saying that She couldn’t “handle” that many kids.
In religious discussions when someone says that anything can happen because God can do anything, I call that the God card. {Jonah could survive for 3 days inside a fish/whale because God can do anything}. It would be pretty insulting to suggest that HM is so limited that she can’t even handle all of her offspring. Also by this same logic any woman that felt overwhelmed by her family size would be justified in inviting in other wives [although in actual practice, I am fairly certain that would get you excommunicated].
I believe that this D&C revelation was heavily influenced by the current predicament between JS and Emma. It seems very reasonable to me that if JS could alter, modify, ammend, and conjoin revelations that had already been printed – then a revelation that was spinning around in JS’s head for several years without being written down couldn’t help but be influenced by current events and evolving understanding.
I look at the subject and much of the way it was practiced the same way I do the priesthood/temple ban, I have no reason to defend it. I’m glad I wasn’t there. For my own needs I hear the tour guide in my head saying: “…nothing more to see here. Moving on.”
Orson wrote:I look at the subject and much of the way it was practiced the same way I do the priesthood/temple ban, I have no reason to defend it.
I’m glad I wasn’t there. For my own needs I hear the tour guide in my head saying: “…nothing more to see here. Moving on.”
Section 132 certainly doesn’t improve with time and rereading. It’s awful from several angles. Lots of women, present and potential members, are saying, “Nothing more to see here. Moving on from Mormonism.”
Yes Ann, my preference would be for the church to officially distance itself from the past practice, revise 132 etc. but I am not the church. We do what we can do for ourselves, it’s the serenity prayer.
Yup couldn’t agree with you more Ann! It is horrible to women no matter how you try to twist it! Orson wrote:Yes Ann, my preference would be for the church to officially distance itself from the past practice, revise 132 etc. but I am not the church.
We do what we can do for ourselves, it’s the serenity prayer.
Sorry. I quoted you, but did not really mean to single your comment out.
🙂 I just picture us twenty more years down the road and
finallydoing too little too late. I think I have been very wrong about polygamy, as I have been wrong about other things. I am sorry. On the “Different perspective of JS and polygramy” (which I will let die), I said it might be worth considering the theory that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy and was essentially framed for it. I realized yesterday that I
wantthat theory to be true (even though it would mean there were other serious issues with the brethren) because I am seriously bothered by the stories of what Joseph did. In addition to the basic problem of polygamy, Joseph apparently married women and then abandonedthem by allowing them to be kicked out of the house. I
once
Quote:For a time in the Church plural marriage was practiced. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this practice began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this practice but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine. The Church is not bound by speculation or opinions given with limited understanding.
We condemn polygamy, including any and all past polygamy by individuals both inside and outside the Church.
Where is that quote taken from?
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