I’ve been reading up on the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) doctrine of polygamy. Information on the church website (http://www.lds.org) says: "In this dispensation, the Lord commanded some of the early Saints to practice plural marriage. The Prophet Joseph Smith and those closest to him, including Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, were challenged by this command, but they obeyed it." Most LDS believe this practice was commanded by God and they defend it. Others are uncomfortable with this doctrine, and have voiced concern, particularly regarding Joseph Smith (church founder) marrying 14 year old girls and women who were already married (http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/26-HelenMarKimball.htm). I’ve hung out at some LDS forums, not unlike this one, to try and get a feel for the thoughts of the faithful and the concerned. Those who can’t accept this practice as being from God, may be shunned, barred from Mormon temples and have received the following typical responses from family, friends and leadership: “Neither you or I can exactly question why God has commanded this through his modern prophets.” “I just don’t feel qualified to question that myself...maybe you do” “We need to beware of the reasoning of the world, and follow our leaders” “Don’t let Satan take you down” “Set aside your concerns. There is much that we don’t know about this” “God has given us all the tools and resources we need for salvation, such as prayer, the Holy Spirit, the scriptures, and a living prophet" “Why are you feeling all this doubt? Doubt is the grey twilight of distrust, hesitation and indecisiveness.” “That’s putting a lot of trust in little old you” “You think about things way too much” “You know deep down what is true and right” “You are only indulging your own self pride and ego” “God has always required hard things from the his chosen people” “You are choosing not to seek the full light of truth for reasons that seem to be self-supporting-self-imposed illusions, or personal, unresolved emotional issues” “Sometimes it’s hard to accept the truth when it means we must be humble and make some changes in intellectual thinking that we’ve become satisfied with.” Suppose a friend of yours, who is a LDS member, has heard this from LDS friends, family and church leaders. Confused and looking for a neutral source outside their faith, they seek your advice (an active JW member). What would you say? What are your thoughts on the responses from their fellow LDS?
What would you say to a Mormon dealing with this?
by John Corrill 3 Replies latest jw friends
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Silverleaf
Hi John,
I'm not and never have been a JW so I don't know if I really qualify to answer, but the question was interesting. If I had a friend who was LDS and wanted advice I would likely say, if you don't want to be kicked out of the church, tell everyone you believe in the doctrines wholeheartedly and then do what you think is right. They can't force you to have more than one wife, since that practice is illegal. Of course I'd add, if you have to lie to stay in the good graces of your religious faith, what good is your religion, really?
My personal opinion on the subject is that the polygamy beliefs are horse crap and yet more indication that the Mormons are no where near the 'true' religion.
Silverleaf
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refiners fire
Hmmm. Well Polygamy was banned from the official Mormon Church in 1890 by the Prophet Willford Woodruff. If one reads the "Official declaration 1" which is the revelation given to the church banning polygamy (Located at the back of "Doctrine and Covenants") you will see that the Revelation abandoning polygamy was recieved after years and years of intense pressure and persecution from the United States Government upon the church for practising plurality of marriage. Woodruffs revelation conveys that it is literally a choice between the church being hounded out of existance and practising polygamy.
Yet another example of a "Divine Revelations" being altered by the course of reality.
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pascaljon
Hi John
Is this a purely hypothetical question?
As a Mormon whos been through periods of variable activity, I feel somewhat able to comment here, and especially with having been a JW previously I can comment on the difference between my experiences as a JW and Mormon.
With regard to the practice of polygamy, I never had a problem with it as such. Niether do I worry about Joseph Smith marrying girls who were only 14, or was it 15? Anyway, didn't Josiah (one of the few good Israelite kings)have two children by the time he was fifteen? Certain rights and wrongs aren't really absolute. I expect somebody will disagree with that.
Anyway, the aspect that I had difficulty with was the apparent duplicity. I've always found though that other Mormons were very relaxed on the whole about my personal doubts and more especially that could be said of church leaders. It generally goes down ok to raise quite controversial questions in discussions at church and I've said some quite challenging things on occasion. On one occasion I used a talk to share some of my doubts which possibly upset some people, but there was no equivalent of a judicial Committee or even the hint of such a thing. Nobody ever said anything to me that could be taken other than as intended in a spirit of concern. As for shunning, I have never heard of or seen such a thing. I think I would have to be very obnoxious to keep mormon friends away.
With regard to being barred from the temple, it is true that the temple is only open to those who are faithful members, but I have no idea why anybody would want to go there if they weren't, so I never viewed that as a problem. A very few members do get excommunicated, but that does not result in JW style shunning. They are simply no longer members of the church and are not supposed to take sacrament, but people wouldn't necessarily even know if I was excommunicated if I didn't choose to tell them.
In contrast, having been a JW with doubts, I felt like I was very much threatened to keep my mouth shut, and when I finally DA'd myself I very much regretted never having the opportunity to talk to friends about why I was leaving.
So, in my opinion, there is very little in common for Mormons and JWs who doubt their religion. The best approach for a Mormon with such questions is to seek out those well informed about the issues that generally cause concern. I'd be happy to help and whether they decided to stay with the church or move on would be entirely up to them.