Posted on 12/26/2011 4:04:21 PM PST by Colofornian
Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has reportedly issued an edict to his followers with a deadline -- renew allegiances to the Fundamentalist LDS Church or be excommunicated.
With a Dec. 31 deadline looming, non-profit groups who help those leaving Utah's polygamous communities say an ongoing exodus from the FLDS Church is turning into a "humanitarian crisis," with people walking away with no place to go.
"You've got new control where you have to give everything," James Barlow told FOX 13. "And I mean everything."
Barlow left the FLDS Church last month after refusing to give his allegiance to Jeffs. Barlow, 19, described being called before Jeffs' brother, Lyle, and asked to confess his sins and be re-baptized into the FLDS Church. Tired of the increasing restrictions on people's lives within the church, Barlow left with the clothes on his back.
"I said 'no' and walked out the door," he said. "To come out here and just fall on my head, just not have anything. Nothing... nobody to give me anything, a roof over my head."
He wound up at a home in the Salt Lake City area where his sister, Ruth, has been staying. She left the FLDS Church in September after deciding she no longer believed in the faith under Jeffs.
"I've really enjoyed the family," Ruth Barlow said in an interview with FOX 13. "They've been really good and really fun to be around. It's different than being with my own family, but it's still the same."
The siblings are being "fostered" by the group Holding Out Help, which works with those in Utah's polygamous communities. Since Jeffs went to prison, the group said it has seen a steady stream of people leaving the FLDS Church.
"They leave with absolutely nothing," said Holding Out Help's Tonia Tewell. "The first thing we try to hit is the basic needs: food, clothing and shelter."
Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for child sex assault related to underage marriages. Since he's been imprisoned, he's released a steady stream of "revelations" he claims are from God to lawmakers across the country. They include demands that he be released or the wrath of the Almighty will destroy the earth. The most recent revelations sent to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff claimed they were a "final warning."
Amongst his followers, Jeffs has reportedly made even more demands. Ex-FLDS members tell FOX 13 he has demanded that children give up toys, and adults sell things like ATVs.
"The demands range from coming up with $5,000 at the end of the month to handing over all the food stamps. I've heard they're no longer allowed to have sexual relations with their wives except to have children," Tewell said.
Tewell said she has heard of as many as 50 people a month leaving the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Some are going to a rival polygamous leader. Others, mostly young adults, are trying to find their way in the world. Holding Out Help and Utah's Safety Net Committee (a coalition of government agencies, social service agencies and polygamists) are trying to find shelter for everyone.
"We need the entire community here in the Salt Lake Valley to step up," said Tewell. "We cannot do this alone any longer."
The Safety Net Committee and Holding Out Help are setting up sort-of "foster homes" across the state. The Safety Net Committee has been holding open houses in St. George, asking people to be willing to open up their homes for children, teenagers, adults or entire families.
"Would I encourage other people to do it? Absolutely. It's been, I think, a blessing to our family," said Kristi Gower, who is hosting the Barlow siblings.
The Safety Net Committee said it would conduct background checks and has a few terms for families willing to foster those from the polygamous communities. More information can be found at holdingouthelp.org or by contacting the Safety Net Committee through Utah's Family Support Center (www.familysupportcenter.org).
James Barlow said with a New Year's Eve deadline coming, more people will likely be leaving.
"Family means everything to most of us from there," he said. "I know, to everybody I know, it means everything. That's why a lot of people haven't left. But you have to the end of the year and you're excommunicated."
You are right. They are taught to “bleed the beast” the beast being the US government
wow, Scoutmaster where did you get that list?
DOES NOT DENY
You are right, LDS and Mormons have no standing on Free Republic. I suppose you are one of the lucky ones who lives in a community where it is ok for you to be on the internet? Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who is actually a Christian stuck in and LDS community? But surely you know there is a party line for LDS and the party line differs from the practical matter. The party line is “There is not any child abuse” and the practical is statutory or actual rape.
Do as I say not as I do.......
I did ask the bishop and he told me I had to be a Mormon first. Bastard.
Some of them are close to being orthodox Christian; the "Community of Christ" (formerly the Reorganized CoJCoLDS) is Trinitarian, for example.
Show me an "anti" who said that. Just one, not the "many" that you claim said it.
I know you can blandly call me a liar and make it personal because I am LDS the RM will not correct you LDS have no standing on FR.
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Whaaaaa. You seem ok with calling US liars (and worse) and the RM not correcting YOU. The LDS have just as much standing as everyone one else. This is a Free Republic after all.
BTW it was not unusual in those days to marry young as 14 with parent consent.
****
Believe and spin what you want and as I said before
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts
Research your history resty - you will see the hole large enough to drive a semi through in your statement.
FLDS just following ALL mormon scripture - particularly D&C Section 132 - which is still DOCTRINE for ALL LDS.
Even about PREBYTERIANism?
Correct. Some split off while Joseph Smith, Jr. was still alive because they found out he was committing polygamy and polyandry (marrying other men's wives) and lying about it. One of them was started by William Law after Joseph Smith, Jr. asked Law's wife to Celestialize with him (that's have sex with him, for those of you from Tuscaloosa).
When she refused to become Smith's 40-oddth wife, the LDS powers started a rumor that she was having an affair. And then when Law objected, Smith did two things. He gave a famous sermon in which he declared that he had been accused of having multiple wives but he could only find one. And he made certain William Law was excommunicated.
Less than a month later, Law has started a spin-off that taught the Book of Mormon was truth, but that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet (the BOM taught that polygamy was a sin). Law was one of the editors of the Nauvoo Expositor, which published a single edition that, among other things, exposed Smith as a polygamist.
Smith ordered the printing press destroyed.
Yada, yada, yada. Smith declares martial law. Treason charges. Carthage jail. Smuggled guns. Smith shoots and kills a couple of men. Smith dies primarily because he's been practicing polygamy since 1831 and lying about it publicly. And he's taking the wives of other men as his wifes. And he's propositioning the wives of other men, and they turn him down. And he excommunicates a man who announces it publicly. And he orders the destruction of a printing press that prints the news that he's a polygamist.
Even in this day and time, messing around with and sleeping with other men's wives will get you killed. Lying about adultery isn't a good idea.
It certainly didn't work for Joseph Smith.
A few of the sects broke off from the Brighamite branch of the church and stopped practicing polygamy as well.
Well, they should read the affidavits and testimony in the Temple Lot case, when Joseph Smith's wives all said they had sex with him and were his wives. Game. Set. Match.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand your point.
Do you mean that Joseph Smith never engaged in polygamy?
Do you mean that Joseph marriage never engaged in polyandrous marriage?
Do you mean that polygamy/polyandry was not practiced until the Saints went west?
Do you mean members of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints never practiced plural marriage?
Do you mean there was no sex in plural marriage?
Seriously, restornu, I'm not certain what you mean when you say "plural marriage as LDS was never lived in this matter". Could you please explain?
What I site comes directly from your FAIR, the place you quote from on a regular bases.
Sorry Resty, J Smith’s legal wife wrote much on her husband having sex with other women INCLUDING the underaged “wife” that lived with them.
If you want to say that is spin, then it appears you are completely blind to your own mormon history.
A combination of Wikipedia and some LDS sources. I compiled it after reading that Joseph Smith had said:
“I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam... Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.”
Source: The LDS History of The Church, 6:408–409. I'd give you the BYU Studies link to this quote from FAIRlds.org, but a typical thing happened. FAIRlds.org frequently creates footnotes and 'scholarly' links that appear to be hyperlinks in an effort to make its works look scholarly. Unfortunately a very, very large percentage of FAIR's links either are 404'd or go to stub links on the FAIR site itself, where FAIR apparently intends someday to include scholarly support for its claims, but doesn't have any yet. It looks impressive, but it's a case of the emperor having no clothes. FAIR claims to have analysis of this quote from BYU Studies, but the link goes nowhere.
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