Navy Officer From Iowa Barred From Entering Mormon Temple

Des Moines Register ^ | 6/19/02 | Vess Mitev

[marshmallow]

A Navy officer from Denmark, Ia., was barred from a Mormon temple in Nauvoo, Ill., on Monday because of his behavior during a previous visit.

Rocky Hulse first toured the new temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on May 21. At the end of the tour, he said, he asked a temple official where the cross was located in the church.

[Grig]

"You've gotten a straight answer: it just wasn't one you are willing to accept."

You really do like making people an offender for a word, don't you. I asked that question many times BEFORE (as in, in other conversations, other threads etc.) I never said your reply was not a straight answer, in fact it is the ONLY straight answer I've gotten to that question that I can recall. I also AGREED with the answer too so I really don't know what you have to complain about.

"You have to be MORE specific than this! WHAT differences????"

What the differences are was not relevant to the point I was making so there was no need to itemize them, although I did mention a biggie, that of authority.


Now, as for D&C 132, you greatly misunderstand, the New and Everlasting Covenant is the fullness of the gospel, not plural marriage. The section discusses both. You have also taken the Official declaration out of it's historical context and changed the meaning. His comments about not teaching it were only referring that present moment. The church had already stopped the practice, but was falsely accused of continueing it, so they released OD1 to set the record straight. If you see a conflict, that is only an indication that you lack information or understanding.

"Make up your mind! What's all this stuff the prophet spouts supposed to mean then?"

I'm not sure what you are talking about. God calls prophets who reveal his word. We don't have to just blindly trust someone who claims to be a prophet though, we can pray and find out for ourselves if his calling is for real, likewise we don't have to wait around for the prophet to get revelation on some verse we don't understand or some question we have, we can go to God and ask ourselves.

"Big families MAY have something to do with it!"

Never said it didn't, although the number of converts a year also rises in a similar fashion, but then so does the number of missionaries. Any other religion is free to try the same thing if they want.

[Grig]

"Nothing in the definition of "Mormon Church" says "Mormons are Christians"."

It also doesn't say that we are not. I did a quick look up of 'Catholic' and 'Baptist' in my dictionary and it didn't say they were christian either. The dictionary is for defining the meaning of a word, not for categorizing religions.

[Grig]

Heb 5:1-6, Paul testifies that Christ was 'a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec'

[Grig]

"So..... you are trying to convince us that NO ONE, in your 'rapidly expanding sect', meets the REQUIREMENTS for multiple wives today?!"

No, I said the current conditions do not make it possible. A plural marriage can only be performed by someone with the priesthood authority (keys) to perform that ordinace, and when
God commanded the practice be stopped, he withdrew the keys for that ordinace so it can not be done at this time, even in nations that do allow plural wives, church memebers must only have one.

[crystalk]

For several years until recently I attended a (PCUSA) church where normally, the Apostles Creed was recited at every weekly worship service. Prior to that, for even more years I frequently visited a (indep but S.Bap-like) Baptist church where I never heard it recited even once. Nevertheless, I see nothing about it that could not have been or was not, held by said church.

Until I was 30 or so, I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and had heard that creed enough to have memorized it, but it was not recited in the services SFAIK.

I have never quite attended an LDS worship service, but have been on premises for Sunday School or other purposes a time or two, but I am sure they also would not recite that creed out loud. But would you really argue that they COULD not, that there would be something about it that they disagreed with or did not hold? I know quite a bit about the LDS and it is not immediately apparent to me, what there is about the A.C. that a Mormon could not agree to...

My background may be limited somewhat, but the only printed arguments I have seen that try to say Mormons are not Christian, go right on to exclude numbers of other groups including RC, SDA, and who knows who all else...who IMO would have no trouble endorsing the Apostles Creed.

[crystalk]

Oh PS I loved your Deus Vult logo, and it is right up to date. The spirits of Godfrey de Bouillon and Richard Coeur de Lion, are about to march, and about time!

[RnMomof7]

No, I said the current conditions do not make it possible. A plural marriage can only be performed by someone with the priesthood authority (keys) to perform that ordinace, and when God commanded the practice be stopped, he withdrew the keys for that ordinace so it can not be done at this time, even in nations that do allow plural wives, church members must only have one.

The LDS still allows plural marriage in countries where it is legal correct?

Grig it seems to me that the prophets of the LDS have very convenient "revelation"

There are racial problems ..a new revelation Blacks may now be priests. The US does not allow plural marriage a revelation changes that doctrine.

It looks to an outsider as a very man controlled political prophet making theses pronouncements.

[drstevej]

Saw this on a LDS site. Where is this person wrong?

====

D&C Section 132 is solely about the practice of the new and everlasting covenant of polygamy...and it's rewards.

The "re-explanation" came after Woodruff caved to political pressure. Just read it exactly as it is written. Read the explanations that were given before the change. Those leaders in prison clothes did not go to jail just to be politically incorrect. They said it was an absolute commandment, and were willing to die to obey it. It was not even a point of discussion, everyone accepted it as a commandment or they left the church. They had principles, and were willing to put their lives on the line to obey them. Wonder what happened to leadership along the way?

It was an absolute commandment; or it was Bullsugar, thought up by a horny guy to promote his fun and games. You can't have it both ways.

He said it was an absolute commandment, as did Young, and Taylor and indeed Woodruff, right up to the time he caved.

[restornu]

I a girl!

[restornu]

Be care ful that you are not "TOUCH BT AN ANGEL"

[wai-ming]

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I guess there is more to Christianity than mere semantics.

Whether Mormons are included in everyone else's circle of Christianity is not as important as whether they are included in Christ's. And I'll leave that up to Him.

As I understand it, Jesus invites all to come unto Him: Buddhists, Christians, even Islamics. I cannot imagine Him turning anyone who sincerely seeks Him away.

[restornu]

You should know you live or use to live near by!

[Illbay]

Say, you're starting to sound AWFULLY "Mormonish"! Have the guys on bikes with ties (GOBWT) been by to see you lately?

[restornu]

The Apostle's Creed

Name the aposllte's who's creed this is?

[restornu]

Gov. Boggs

An interesting thing to look up is the what happen Boggs and his progenitors.

The "members of the mob" that kill Joseph Smith and his Brother Hyrum, how they died!

[Jeff Head]

I cannot imagine Him turning anyone who sincerely seeks Him away.

Amen to that ... and that is the summation of the whole point.

Thank you for stating it so succinctly.

God bless.

[restornu]

I bet your one of them who on every street cornor that had paid phones you would scratch on the sliver part-

WORSHIP GOD!:)

[Utah Girl]

And here is the Official Declaration from the Doctrine and Covenants.

OFFICIAL DECLARATION—1

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.

EXCERPTS FROM THREE ADDRESSES BY
PRESIDENT WILFORD WOODRUFF
REGARDING THE MANIFESTO

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty. (Sixty-first Semiannual General Conference of the Church, Monday, October 6, 1890, Salt Lake City, Utah. Reported in Deseret Evening News, October 11, 1890, p. 2.)

It matters not who lives or who dies, or who is called to lead this Church, they have got to lead it by the inspiration of Almighty God. If they do not do it that way, they cannot do it at all. . . .

I have had some revelations of late, and very important ones to me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me. Let me bring your minds to what is termed the manifesto. . . .

The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.

The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?

The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for . . . any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed. A large number has already been delivered from the prison house in the spirit world by this people, and shall the work go on or stop? This is the question I lay before the Latter-day Saints. You have to judge for yourselves. I want you to answer it for yourselves. I shall not answer it; but I say to you that that is exactly the condition we as a people would have been in had we not taken the course we have.

. . . I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write. . . .

I leave this with you, for you to contemplate and consider. The Lord is at work with us. (Cache Stake Conference, Logan, Utah, Sunday, November 1, 1891. Reported in Deseret Weekly, November 14, 1891.)

Now I will tell you what was manifested to me and what the Son of God performed in this thing. . . . All these things would have come to pass, as God Almighty lives, had not that Manifesto been given. Therefore, the Son of God felt disposed to have that thing presented to the Church and to the world for purposes in his own mind. The Lord had decreed the establishment of Zion. He had decreed the finishing of this temple. He had decreed that the salvation of the living and the dead should be given in these valleys of the mountains. And Almighty God decreed that the Devil should not thwart it. If you can understand that, that is a key to it. (From a discourse at the sixth session of the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, April 1893. Typescript of Dedicatory Services, Archives, Church Historical Department, Salt Lake City, Utah.)

[Illbay]

OR, your silly narrow-minded "either-or-can't-be-anything-else" false dichotomy has broken down.

Let's see, which could it be?

Well, if it's all the same to you, I'll stick with the Prophet of the Lord. No hard feelings.

[restornu]

The Apostle's Creed

Name the apostle's who's creed this is?