- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
On Own Now wrote:
QuestionsAbound,
All very good questions… I don’t have the answers. There are a number of reasons why the eternal marriage doctrine could lead to the concept of plural marriage… not defending here, because I think it was a terrible practice that got JS killed and sent the next generation of the Church into perpetual trials… but here are some things that could contribute to the evolution from eternal marriage to plural marriage in the mind of a spiritual leader acting on his own accord, without God directing it:
– In 19th-century America, people frequently outlived a spouse and remarried. This was common both in and out of the Church. Enter the doctrine of eternal marriage and immediately confusion abounds.
– Abraham was called the “father of many nations” after having two sons, each from a different woman. It’s easy to make the leap that the eternal increase of a man could be accommodated via multiple wives, though the reverse would not be true… or at least not as obvious.
– JS clearly gave importance to family relationships. I believe he used polygamy… eternal polygamy… as a way to form eternal family bonds; linking families in the hereafter, sort of the way nations are joined into alliances via royal marriages.
Excellent, excellent point.An interesting thought I had this morning… How can section 132 be so muddled if it was recorded as it was being dictated by the Lord, but the temple ceremonies can be so perfect and exact (assuming the signs and tokens and verbiage were inspired)?
Maybe the ceremonies … or the origins … are part of another thread. I’ll have to look for that one.
hawkgrrrl wrote:As for what the church can do about polygamy, how can they disavow it when so many of the top leaders (and many lay members) descended from polygamists? In a church where we revere our forebears that becomes problematic. I find the practice repugnant on every level, but I do understand that saying so would be harsher for someone with ancestors who participated.
I have ancestors who were polygamists. I don’t think it would be harsh to disavow polygamy. My belief is that they honestly did what they thought was right and that they believed they were doing what God wanted. It was a trial for every one of them, men and women. I don’t blame THEM, I blame the doctrine. So, in a way, I would like the church to repudiate the practice/doctrine/revelation, because I think it would serve to absolve my ancestors. Even if I were descended from JS or BY, I wouldn’t be personally responsible for their actions. My thinking is that if the Church ever does disavow it, they will do so in a way that (correctly) paints the doctrine as an attempt to live their lives in a way that they thought God wanted them to.QuestionAbound wrote:If plural marriage means that both men and women can have multiple partners for creating worlds, that would make way more sense…how can we bind women to loving just one man (when we are the ones with tender hearts), but permit men to love multiple women and still call it fair and just?
QuestionAbound wrote:there is a glimmer of hope that PM can go both ways…which would be an amazing way to create worlds without end…
QuestionAbound, if I may make a suggestion. The way out of PM/Polygamy is not to make it “fair” but to eradicate it. I know that there are those here that think that maybe there is some eternal principle buried in it, but even they will acknowledge that we can only really guess at what that might be. In the view of some, in the next life there may be relationships that resemble plural marriage… perhaps it “can go both ways”, and if that sets your mind at ease, I’m fine with that. But for the here and now… this world… there should be only one law regarding marriage, and I’ll go way out on a limb and say that that law should be monogamy. IMO, attempting, supporting, revering or being sympathetic to plural marriage only leads the church and its people to trouble. It has been so in the past, and it continues to be so now.hawkgrrrl wrote:As for what the church can do about polygamy, how can they disavow it when so many of the top leaders (and many lay members) descended from polygamists? In a church where we revere our forebears that becomes problematic. I find the practice repugnant on every level, but I do understand that saying so would be harsher for someone with ancestors who participated.
What’s so maddening about this is that I hear there’s going to be deluge of new resources from the church – I’m guessing all about complicated church history issues, how unknowable many of them are, how the leaders were imperfect men, about how they often took a step in one direction and then two steps in another, how local leaders are always doing their best, but make mistakes, how we’re all products of our culture, on and on. So polygamy could have been a well-intentioned misstep? No!!! Straight from God’s lips to the pen of whoever! And shame on you for even suggesting such a thing.
A healthy chunk of people in the American south are descendents of slave-holders. They know they come from good people who accomplished much, but were products of their time. Slavery shouldn’t have been condemned because it would hurt their pride? For the most part, we’re a country and a world of grown-ups. We don’t hold each other responsible for the actions of ancestors.
Again, there is a HUGE difference between “plural marriage” (in all its iterations) and “polygamy” (as codified in Utah). There also is a huge difference between “sealing” (especially in the time of Joseph) and “marriage” (particularly in the polygamous days but even now). In every traditional way we automatically think about now, Joseph Smith really wasn’t “married” to anyone but Emma, even though he was sealed to more then thirty women and probably had consummation sex with a handful. Conflating things that are not the same things obscures and distorts a lot of things. I personally believe in a Council of the Gods construct that emphasizes cooperative godhood and does not include sexual activity as we know it now, and, for me, that completely eliminates any angst over never-ending polygamy. I don’t have to believe in it, and I don’t even have to believe that mortal polygamy is “divine” in any way. I can see it as an aberration and be totally free to distinguish it from other aspects of the principle and concept of sealing (which I love) and plural marriage (with which I don’t have any real issues). I can throw out the polygamy bathwater, if you will, without having to discard the plural marriage and eternal sealing babies.
QuestionAbound wrote:An interesting thought I had this morning…
How can section 132 be so muddled if it was recorded as it was being dictated by the Lord, but the temple ceremonies can be so perfect and exact (assuming the signs and tokens and verbiage were inspired)?
1. If a revelation is dicated by the Lord, it still goes through the mental filter of a mortal.2. The temple ceremonies have been refined over a period of 150+ years.
Section 132 is unlike any other section. It does not appear to be a revelation through Brother Joseph.
QuestionAbound wrote:How can section 132 be so muddled if it was recorded as it was being dictated by the Lord?
I’m not trying to make a case FOR 132… but bringing this up for the broader construct. With very few exceptions, I don’t think JS claimed that the revelations were the literal words of God that he wrote down, but rather than these were his own words capturing the inspiration he felt. If you look at D&C 121, starting in verse 7, it reads like a revelation, like God is speaking to JS in Liberty Jail (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/121?lang=eng http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/letter-to-the-church-and-edward-partridge-20-march-1839?p=8 IMO, JS felt that God spoke THROUGH him, not TO him.
Old-Timer wrote:Again, there is a HUGE difference between “plural marriage” (in all its iterations) and “polygamy” (as codified in Utah). There also is a huge difference between “sealing” (especially in the time of Joseph) and “marriage” (particularly in the polygamous days but even now). In every traditional way we automatically think about now, Joseph Smith really wasn’t “married” to anyone but Emma, even though he was sealed to more then thirty women and probably had consummation sex with a handful. Conflating things that are not the same things obscures and distorts a lot of things.
I personally believe in a Council of the Gods construct that emphasizes cooperative godhood and does not include sexual activity as we know it now, and, for me, that completely eliminates any angst over never-ending polygamy. I don’t have to believe in it, and I don’t even have to believe that mortal polygamy is “divine” in any way. I can see it as an aberration and be totally free to distinguish it from other aspects of the principle and concept of sealing (which I love) and plural marriage (with which I don’t have any real issues). I can throw out the polygamy bathwater, if you will, without having to discard the plural marriage and eternal sealing babies.
We don’t have to get all into it again, but right now I don’t see how Joseph’s intent was any different than the others’. In Rough Stone Rolling: “Levi Hancock remembered the Prophet telling him in 1832: ‘Brother Levi, the Lord has revealed to me that it is his will that righteous men shall take Righteous women even a plurality of wives that a Righteous race may be sent forth upon the Earth…..’ “
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:It was all made up!!!
Yeah, Cadence, that would be the easiest answer – but I personally don’t think it fits the totality of the evidence very well.
What’s wrong with easy. Seems the best approach until god or some leader has the nerve to actually set the record straight. Just reading this thread makes my head spin that we try so hard to explain something that otherwise we would reject just because it comes from a book of scripture.So until we get something definitive I am going with the explanation of doctrine based on fiction. If others want to grind the gears of philosophical debate I understand why. at one point I was the same way until I became exhausted with digging for explanations that never were to be had.
Quote:until I became exhausted with digging for explanations that never were to be had.
And all I’m saying is that there have been answers to be had for me that aren’t the easiest extremes – divine or libido-driven. I see it as much more complex than either extreme.
I don’t dismiss your view as absurd – not at all – but I understand you see mine as absurd – and I’m fine with that. There really is no animosity or desire to change your mind. You see it your way; I see it mine. I’m cool with that.
Ray, I’m curious why you like Nauvoo polygamy better than Utah polygamy. I’m the opposite. When we hear that “polygamy was to take care of the widows because men died”, there’s much more truth to that in the Utah era than the Nauvoo era. What makes you like Nauvoo more than Utah? Frankly, when I hear that “polygamy was to take care of the widows because men died”, I dismiss it as not being a valid, comprehensive justification – just like so much of what was said to justify the Priesthood ban. Yes, there were some cases of that here and there, but it wasn’t close to the main reason, imo. I don’t like the angel with the drawn sword justification (even though I’m not convinced at all that Joseph made it up), but I am okay with the plural marriage / sealing stuff mostly because it wasn’t one codified, rigid structure. I see searching and experimentation and an expansive theology being born in that time period – a breaking away from societal norms in a way that was “liberating” and grounded in a theology that I can accept, albeit in my own unique way. (by believing in the type of Council of the Gods structure I’ve described previously that fits non-sexual, non-traditional marriage sealings quite well)
Utah-era polygamy is very different. I see it as constricting the previous vision and forcing a simpler societal organization onto what had been complex and expansive. I don’t see polygamy as revolutionary, evolutionary or visionary; I see it as a backward-looking entrenchment – the opposite of how I see the earlier movement, especially with dynastic and communal sealing. If Joseph had lived, I believe what would have evolved would have been that type of focus on the sealing of the entire human population and not just the much more narrow sealing of couples and immediate family that developed under Brigham Young.
I agree with Ann’s point that not disavowing slavery because people weredescended from slave owners is an apt parallel. It’s supremely frustrating to me to hear people attempt to justify it. +1 Ann and Hawkgirrrl statements!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.