Marriages dissolved, sexual relationships banned among FLDS faithful

KSL.com ^ | December 30, 2011 | John Hollenhorst

[Zakeet]

As the year comes to an end and the followers of Warren Jeffs await the apocalypse he has predicted, they're living under a challenging edict: they're forbidden to have sex until Jeffs is sprung from a Texas prison.

"He has predicted that the walls in the prison where he's at will fall and crumble," said Joni Holm, who has many relatives in the polygamous FLDS faith.

According to Holm, Fundamentalist LDS Church members also face their faith's most severe punishment, excommunication, if they conceive a child.

It's one of the strangest edicts in a season full of them. Jeffs has issued a stream of revelations, prophecies and orders to his congregation in the border community of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

[Snip]

According to Holm, Jeffs declared all existing marriages to be void.

"Right now they have all been told that they are not to live as husband and wife," Holm said. "They can live in the same house, but they are not to have sexual relationships until Warren comes out and 're-seals' them."

[Snip]

If FLDS members have sex on the sly, any resulting children will be considered "sons of perdition," according to Holm's brother-in-law, and the parents will be instantly excommunicated.

The sex ban will be lifted only if Jeffs' latest prophecy comes true: an apocalypse that will bring down the prison walls and broil the human race.

"They believe that they'll still roam on the Earth," Holm said, "but the rest of us will be burned."

[ican'tbelieveit]

No, I compared you to an angry Christian. You are so off-putting that I can’t get past that to hear your message. You jumped on what you thought I was doing, personally attacking me, rather than trying to get clarity on what I am saying. You assumed that what I was saying was justifying the terrible cult that you are fighting against, because you are so defensive and sure that everyone is against you. I am not, but you didn’t step back enough to see what I truly said, you jumped to a conclusion based on tunnel vision.

[ican'tbelieveit]

I don’t disagree that the two situations will definitely need to be addressed differently, particularly in the area of child crimes. But, child crimes go on in the inner cities, also. I just read an article the other day about child prostitution happening in Denver. I should look it up for you. Young lady got out of it, with help, help like you provide, but some of her comments worried me, about how hard it was to survive, thrive, outside of that world. Her world view was so distorted, that she is drawn back to that world.

[ican'tbelieveit]

I would say that the government doesn’t really care how people vote. Somewhat they do, at least at the party level. But the government, when it comes to social programs, doesn’t really care how people vote. All they care about is the numbers on those rolls. Look, we have so many people getting food stamps, we need more money, therefore, we need to tax working Americans more to support these poor people. And you know, we should redefine what poor is, so that more people qualify, inflating our numbers. There was an article the other day about what percentage of Americans now receive some form of social services, unbelievably high.

[Elsie]

Don’t get me started on how evil these people are.

At LEAST they are not NAZIs!!!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xejnzc_the-house-i-live-in-1945_shortfilms

[Elsie]

John Wesley Powell, Captain,  was mustered into service in  Battery F, 2d Illinois Artillery.

 

After drilling a few weeks he was ordered to proceed with his battery to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, where he arrived the latter part of March, 1862. The battery took part in the battle of Shiloh, April 6th of that year, and during the engagement, as Powell raised his arm, a signal to fire, a rifle ball struck his hand at the wrist. glancing toward the elbow. The necessary surgery was done so hastily that later a second operation was imperative, which left him with a mere stump below the elbow-joint.

 

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jwpowell.htm

[Elsie]

You do know that most of these women are on welfare because legally they are single moms with like 12 kids.

Unintended consequences of trying to 'help' someone - Liberalism - without requiring the 'someone' to change their ways.

We taxpayers SUBSIDIZE this behaviour EVERYWHERE and it WILL break the back of the country, sooner or later.

[Elsie]

The FLDS is all about scamming the welfare system, and that’s where they ran into trouble.

Oh?

The 'system' is DESIGNED to help people like this; so HOW can it be scamming?

[Elsie]

So he used weasel words.

A True Blue AMERICAN!

He'd be in Congress today; working the crowd in Iowa!

[Elsie]

I was surprised nobody had picked the low-hanging fruit left by the author's comment and responded with "An Account Written by the Hand of ...".

Then I'm 5' 10"...

[Elsie]

Yup...

[Elsie]

He is controlling their souls.

True.

And yet; does not our Government do the same; just not to the same degree?

[Elsie]

Come on you two - you're about 95-96% in agreement.

Don't let the difference between parallel & serial polygamy divide you.

[Elsie]

Jeffs isn’t simply controlling these peoples’ lives, minds and bodies with this edict. He is controlling their souls.

"I don't know that we teach THAT!"

---

In case you don't recognize the title of this post, it is part of President Hinckley's answer to a reporter's question that appeared in the August 4 1997 issue of Time magazine. The reporter referenced the King Follett discourse. The answer supplied and the manner in which it was delivered caused the reporter to draw some false conclusions about a very important doctrine.

In that discourse, the prophet Joseph Smith said, "If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man." (See also D&C 130:22)

The article referred to Lorenzo Snow's couplet, "As man is now, God once was; as God now is, man may become." The reporter said, "God the Father was once a man as we are. This is something that Christian writers are always addressing." President Hinckley was then asked, "Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?"

The bothersome reply

"I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it."

The reporter wrote, "On whether his church still holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain." That's an unfortunate conclusion. Of course I wasn't at the interview and neither were you but I'll bet the reporter mistook careful thoughtfulness for uncertainty. This doctrine is indeed deep territory and not something that is taught outside the LDS Church.

An earlier and similar interview

The San Francisco Chronicle, published an interview with President Hinckley in April of 1997. The reporter asked, "There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't Mormon's believe that God was once a man?" President Hinckley responded, "I wouldn't say that. There is a little couplet coined, 'As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.'"

He then said, "Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about." The reporter pounced on this. "So you're saying that the church is still struggling to understand this? " President Hinckley responded, "Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression. Very strongly."

President Hinckley's response

President Hinckley said in October 1997 General Conference: "I personally have been much quoted, and in a few instances misquoted and misunderstood. I think that's to be expected. None of you need worry because you read something that was incompletely reported. You need not worry that I do not understand some matters of doctrine.

"I think I understand them thoroughly, and it is unfortunate that the reporting may not make this clear. I hope you will never look to the public press as the authority on the doctrines of the Church." And there lies the whole point of my post today. Some members did indeed become a little concerned by the exchanges they read in the press reports of those interviews.

Does the Church still teach this?

I know this is old news but it still bothers some people when they discover the anti-Mormon attacks floating around on the Internet. President Hinckley was right. We really don't know much about how our Heavenly Father became a God. The idea that he passed through a mortal probationary state like you and me is certainly not documented in any scripture of which I know.

However, it is still taught. In the Gospel Principles manual in the chapter on exaltation we read, "Joseph Smith taught: "It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46)."

Summary and conclusion

I don't know why this should bother anyone. The doctrine is true. Joseph Smith knew a whole lot more about this than I do. President Hinckley also knew a whole lot more about this doctrine than he was willing to share with reporters who did not have the background to understand it. It must have been difficult for President Hinckley to hold back and not teach it in those interviews.

It didn't bother me when I read the interviews back in 1997 and it doesn't bother me today. However, I know it does bother some people. We each have trials of our faith. I have never depended on an intellectual understanding of the gospel in order to accept it and live it. There are some things that just can't be fully comprehended without the temple, prayer and faith.

---

---

 There are some things that just can't be fully comprehended without the temple, prayer and faith. 

[Cincinatus' Wife]

And to think, Anti-Rick Perry posters used the rescue of these girls to attack Gov Rick Perry as — “interfering with home schooling.”

[Elsie]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far; so good!

 

 

 

 

 

(SOMEone has discovered yet ANOTHER of my alter egos!)

 

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Absolutely.

[reaganaut]

I’m swiping the first one to send out with Christmas cards for the law firm next year.

[Elsie]

"You cannot swipe what I have freely... Wait a durn minute here...