Why? Are you in a position to decide what Mormons need to do?
Log: Are you in a position to decide what Mormons need to do?
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Log have you ever said those same words to Hinckley or Munson...
or Oakes or Peterson
Or one of the first presidency
or a mormon apostle or a mormon elder...
or one of a 70
or one of the 12 apostles...
or your bishop, stake president, ward president...
mission president, MTC president,
BYU president, BYU professor...
husband, wife, father...
mormon missionary..
Then since you havent...
Then why did you ask C that ???
Sometimes when you formalize something, you distinguish informal commitments already established.
Example: Canonization of the Bible: Yes, this was a formal commitment; but it was based upon what was already comprehensively informally recognized within the Church.
'Twas more a "confirmation" than a "new decision" from scratch.
It's in that spirit I offer these up. I'm not really drawing up any truth commitment that is NOT already loosely or informally held by Mormons -- both those who have given the rough content within posts #599 and #602 some past or present conscious consideration...and those for whom it's been just underneath the surface.
(By "commitment" I mean a commitment to contradictory truth claims...to take one side or the other).
I'm merely "formalizing" what Mormons already loosely hold...These oaths were simply meant to draw a relief-like "word map" -- as does a 3-dimensional map does of mountains and hills and valleys.
It's not the minute details of what I wrote in posts #599 & #602 that's pertinent...I mean, Mormons can choose to "formalize" what I wrote in any way they want to...however...Logo, please answer me this:
Don't you think who gets to be with Heavenly Father in heaven forever is the very heart of the gospel? (It certainly is the Biblical Christian gospel.)
I'm very interested in your opinion on that Q from a Mormon perspective: Don't you think this same Q also either is -- or needs to be -- at the very heart of the Mormon gospel as well?
So when you ask "why" in relation to me...well, who cares about me? What's important is the truth represented there. Which version of that "truth" will John or Jane Mormon commit to? That's what's at stake.
And why is that?
Because truth beckons us to either...
...commit to it by formally and publicly embracing it...
...or run away from it...
...it doesn't leave the luxury of a "neutral middle ground" option.
Why? Are you in a position to decide what Mormons need to do?
To Whom It May Concern:
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy
I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
WILFORD WOODRUFF
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Lorenzo Snow offered the following:
I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.
Salt Lake City, Utah, October 6, 1890.
Hebrews 11:35-40
35. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37. They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38. the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. |
~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President