Posted on 04/06/2008 5:27:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.
The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”
Moses killed an Egyptian (Ex. 2:12) and God still "approved" of using him as a "deliverer."
(So now according to DU's "logic," murder is OK if nothing bad happens to you or if God uses you in some way after the fact).
What? You think that's all God does? He makes appearances to you & punishes you for every sin & if He uses you in some positive way after you sin, "Well, that must mean He sanctions it?" (So God is now the author of all sins where post-sin blessings follow??? DU, your logic is as twisted as it comes)
B) Nowhere in the Bible is anyone reprimanded or commanded not to have more than one wife.
(Yeah that's what the bigamist said after being arrested...someone happened to then inform him that "bigamy" was covered under the broader umbrella of biblical "adultery")
BTW, DU, I could by use of your logic claim that "Nowhere in the Bible is anyone reprimanded for having an abortion or commanded not to have one." Or, I could like you try to claim in a parallel manner that "Nowhere in the Bible is anyone reprimanded for femicide or commanded not to commit femicide." Or I could like you try to claim in a parallel manner that "Nowhere is the Bible is anyone reprimanded for genocide or commanded not commit genocide."
But when you point out that abortion, femicide, and genocide are ALL covered under that broad umbrella of "thou shalt not kill," it shows how ludicrous your statement is that you fail to realize that polygamy is also under that same umbrella term of adultery.
You need to realize that perhaps one of the reasons God still blessed Abram despite his adultery is because it occurred prior to his Gen. 17 covenant AND, as is also true of Jacob, both lived in pre-10 Commandments era where God finally specifically addressed adultery.
As for the post 10-commandments era, you're left to just a select few of men that the Bible speaks well of late in their lives or post-death who had concubines (like Caleb, Gideon, David). But God used David despite his adultery with Bathsheba and indirect murder of Uriah. God used Peter despite his betrayal. God used these men in spite of their sin--not because God chose to sanction the sin.
And that's the problem of your basic worldview, DU. Since for the Mormon it's "worthy" this and "worthy" that, it's tough actually believing in pure grace & mercy. There's always some thinking that God only blesses the Mormon because of the purity of Mormon worthiness--not because God is simply gracious and merciful!!
You get the trigger confused, DU. The trigger is God's character, not man's actions!!!
As I can-I will make replies.
BTW: the Ethiopian Coptics were never on the fringes of Christianity. Out of the connected schools of Christianity to the Ethiopian Coptics come many early defenses of the Christian Faith against gnosticism.
You said;
quote “Paul, a student of Enoch, tells us the same, which He read in Enoch, and which Isaiah only spoke of as having been said by YHWH already, without naming Jesus Christ as YHWH who had spoken and said that, “to Him every knee would bow”.
“Paul was a student of the bible and this passage is a reflection of Isa 45:23. Isaiah was written before 1 Enoch by centuries. Secondly, I have not found that phrase in 1 Enoch – it doesn’t exist. As I’ve said before, there is nothing that 1 Enoch can supply that isn’t already in the bible.”unquote
Please note, in Isaiah 45, YHWH states that He had already said it. -He said it in Enoch, but in Enoch, it is the son of Man to whom all bow, and Paul then can state that Jesus Christ is the one, as the Son of Man, to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, though in Isaiah YHWH is named, Paul knew YHWH was JEsus Christ in that passage, because Enoch says the Son of Man [who was hidden, and was to come] is the One to whom the Father commits all judgment and to whom all bow and confess.
Isa 45:23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in] righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
Phl 2:9,10,11 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
One place this is stated in Enoch is here, in the preceding chapter, it is the Son of Man [who by then has come in flesh, risen and received the Glory] to whom they are all bowing and confessing, as the King of Kings and Lord of Glory, and God of the ages, as the latter part of this also shows:
[Chapter 63]
1 In those days shall the mighty and the kings who possess the earth implore (Him) to grant them a little respite from His angels of punishment to whom they were delivered, that they might fall 2 down and worship before the Lord of Spirits, and confess their sins before Him. And they shall bless and glorify the Lord of Spirits, and say:
’ Blessed is the Lord of Spirits and the Lord of kings,
And the Lord of the mighty and the Lord of the rich,
And the Lord of glory and the Lord of wisdom,
3 And splendid in every secret thing is Thy power from generation to generation,
And Thy glory for ever and ever:
Deep are all Thy secrets and innumerable,
And Thy righteousness is beyond reckoning.
4 We have now learnt that we should glorify
And bless the Lord of kings and Him who is king over all kings.’
5 And they shall say:
’ Would that we had rest to glorify and give thanks
And confess our faith before His glory !
6 And now we long for a little rest but find it not:
We follow hard upon and obtain (it) not:
And light has vanished from before us,
And darkness is our dwelling-place for ever and ever:
7 For we have not believed before Him
Nor glorified the name of the Lord of Spirits, [nor glorified our Lord]
But our hope was in the sceptre of our kingdom,
And in our glory.
8 And in the day of our suffering and tribulation He saves us not,
And we find no respite for confession
That our Lord is true in all His works, and in His judgements and His justice,
And His judgements have no respect of persons.
And we pass away from before His face on account of our works,
And all our sins are reckoned up in righteousness.’
10 Now they shall say unto themselves: ‘ Our souls are full of unrighteous gain, but it does not prevent us from descending from the midst thereof into the burden of Sheol.’
11 And after that their faces shall be filled with darkness
And shame before that Son of Man,
And they shall be driven from his presence,
And the sword shall abide before his face in their midst.
12 Thus spake the Lord of Spirits: ‘ This is the ordinance and judgement with respect to the mighty and the kings and the exalted and those who possess the earth before the Lord of Spirits.’
Sorry, you lost me here, right at the beginning.
Assume Adam only had one wife?!?! That's what it says in Scripture. Thinking that he had more is a great assumption with absolutely no backing. Pretty presumptuous.
Don't you think that if God had created more, He would have told us? Otherwise, He's lying when He said He created Eve and "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife (SINGULAR), and the two will become one flesh".
So they made him blonde? lol
Heil to the man??
Pinging restornu for you, Colofornian. This is something she may want to consider...or maybe not.
The essence of being a Mormon is proving that YOU are WORTHY. Apparently if you didn't get your Bishop's approval for a Temple Recommend, you could end up with that Bishop being married to YOUR WIFE for eternity!
Is this practice still going on?
they could not, some of these women were also "married" to worthy men in the church, however, these women continued to live with their current husbands for the rest of their lives because the marriage was only for eternity, not for mortality.
So they sleep with their unworthy mortal husbands while at the same time they are officially married to some other man who has been officially declared "Worthy".
That's rich.
"this makes for a very confusing mess..."
DU, this is a most apt description I have ever read of Mormon theology.
A "very confusing mess".
Indeed.
BTW that was a heck of a lousy defense of the indefensible. But then when you are defending the indefensible, you really don't have many good points, just "a very confusing mess."
I sure would like to know who Eve was?
Pologamy was onle acceptable when God sanction it all the rest of time it was forbidden.
There are places where the Lord did recind it and also forbid it.
1- Marrying foreighn women that God forbid in general that as his people were not to followship with them.
2- Solmon also violated that after David warn him.
3- When reading many of the Psalms you see the angst that David felt when he fell from exaltation for doing what he did with out the Blessings of God and it also lead to murder.
David Kingship and fall
http://www.byu.tv/index.html?start=66600&stop=68400&show=&ep=http://qmplive.xlontech.net/byutv/stream/080408.qvt
Fall of Solmon
http://www.byu.tv/index.html?start=25200&stop=27000&show=&ep=http://qmplive.xlontech.net/byutv/stream/080410.qvt
Well said Colofornian!
I for one am thoroughly disgusted and sickened at the complete evil I am seeing within the mainstream LDS DEFENDING these child rapists!!! So much for the 'family friendly' sham. I mean I always knew the LDS was satanically inspired; but with this FLDS news story the evil is so blatant that it can clearly be seen by anyone with a functioning braincell. Its almost as if God is not mocked and is exposing this cult for what it is. Talk about whitewashed tombs...........
If you really want to at some time understand these things I am sure the Lord will aid you but if your start with a premise that it is bla bla I am sure that is also what you will get!
To me it is not wise to share documents with those who purpose is to undermind instead allowing the Lord to edify.
Those with humble minds and real sincerity or intent will receive the most out of it!
Gee, P Marlowe, I believe you were a mormon much longer than resty has been, weren't you?
To me it is not wise to share documents with those who purpose is to undermind instead allowing the Lord to edify.
If that is so, resty, why do you post links to BYU?
the fruit of thy loins
On your way to mock the LDS you also have mock the words in the Bible to make your point.
It is you who took the liberty upon yourself it only shows you have little reverents for the things of the Lord.
You believe this is wrong from an emotional point of view but you reallly have no knowledge from a spiritual understanding.
The point I am make in order for you to bring this off you still had to mock the things in the Bible like a worldly commidian who has not vested interest in the word of God but to mock!
This is what I find offensive from the mainstream reverence goes over their head, because the world does it many feel it is acceptable yet the scripture warn about making light of the things of God!
So you really are more of the world than of your dear Lord and you really are not aware of how much of the world you have taken on!
And those that laught with you are no better.
Neh. 2: 19
19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?
Prov. 3: 34
34 Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly.
Prov. 29: 8
8 Scornful men bring a city into a snare: but wise men turn away wrath.
1 Ne. 8: 33
33 And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not.
At no time did a rightesou man of the Lord misuse the ordinacne of the Lord, and you should be very careful about what you have taken upon your self to malign.
Eph 5
1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will stand long after you have left this earth.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will stand long after you have left this earth.”
yep. And that’s where it ends.
Questions about polygamy typically fall into the following categories:
Read Red Herrings
Isn't polygamy forbidden by the Bible?
Classical misdirection, it was permitted under specific circumstances under Mosaic Law while tolerated under the period of the Patriarchs. DU takes the unsubstantiated projection that Adam has ALL women. The bible and even mormon documents state clearly there was only Eve.
Throughout the Old testament there are people living in polygamous marriages, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. We only find out about their polygamy when it impacts "the story", never to reprimand them, thus it's valid to assume since these "men of God" were never reprimanded by God or it would be in the record, thus we can conclude that polygamy was not an issue for God, and God does not change...
Again, tolerance does not equal approval. Hagar was a problem that Abraham got himself into without asking God but by following his wife’s advise to follow local customs. How blessed was that. Isaac was cheated and tricked into marrying another. We saw how well that turned out. Same for Jacob and Moses. The OT records actions by many, just because their actions were recorded does not automatically mean that it condones their behavior.
Some claim that Jesus forbid polygamy, here let me give the Scriptures they use: …..snip……
This is a condemnation of the Serial polygamy that is commonly practiced today, but not a condemnation of the biblical polygamy where the marriage bonds stay intact, children keep their fathers, and the family unit instead of being destroyed is just expanded
I have challenged theologians on line many times and none can show me a scripture that forbids a man to have two, or more wives.
You have been shown this twice, so the third time is a charm.
The clearest teaching against polygamy comes from Jesus in His teaching on divorce:
Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." (NIV Matt 19.8-9, pp. Mark 10.1-12)
The key thing to note here is that this argument fails if polygamy is acceptable! Jesus' point is that improper divorce does not nullify a marriage, and if the first marriage still stands, then a "second" marriage is adultery--and NOT simply 'polygamy'! This is very clear.
"The saying is hyperbolic-that is, it has exaggerated, intensified force: because God does not accept divorce as valid, any man who divorces his wife is not really divorced, and if he marries someone else, he commits adultery. No one else in antiquity spoke of divorce in such strong terms. (Because most Jewish teachers allowed polygamy, they would not have seen marrying a second wife as adultery, even if they had agreed that the man was still married to the first wife. But Jesus eliminates the double standard; a man consorting with two women is as adulterous as a woman consorting with two men.) [BBC, in.loc. Mark 10:11.
"The school of Shammai ... did not permit divorce except for the wife's unfaithfulness (whether successful or attempted), but they did not consider remarriage afterward adulterous. Jesus is more consistent: if one divorces one's spouse without valid grounds , the marriage is not truly dissolved and subsequent marriage is adulterous." [BBC, in. loc. Mtt 19.9]
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/polygame.html
Jesus brings us back to the ideal that God had designed for man – monogamy. Using DU’s logic, divorce is allowable, but Jesus put both of these concepts down because of the hardness of men’s hearts.
Polygamy is Icky.
Red herring, not worthy of further response
Polygamy Is or was Illegal
Edmunds – tucker act, while a specific law, the supreme court in its decision made it very clear that polygamy was against the law in this country since its founding. I’ve cited the decision, DU, I’m sure you can find it again. The second falsehood is that under Illinois state law it was illegal since at least 1833. The final lie to DU’s argument here is that the Nauvoo charter permitted them to make their own determination of the legality of polygamy. But that is false. Under the incorporation documents
Sec. 13. The City Council shall have exclusive power within the city, by ordinance, to license, regulate, and restrain the keeping of ferries; to regulate the police of the city; to impose fines, forfeitures, and penalties for the breach of any ordinance, and provide for the recovery of such fines and forfeitures, and the enforcement of such penalties; and to pass such ordinances, as may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers specified in this Act; provided such ordinances are not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or of this State, and in fine to exercise such other legislative powers as are conferred on the City Council of the City of Springfield, by an Act entitled an Act to Incorporate the City of Springfield, approved February 3rd, 1840.
And under the legislative powers of the City Council:
Sec. 36. The City Council shall have power to make all ordinances which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers specified in this Act, so that such ordinances be not repugnant to nor inconsistent with, the constitution of the United States or of this state.
The charter in two locations makes it clear that the city could not pass any laws that were inconsistent with state and federal laws - that means polygamy. The simple fact that even with this charter – mormon polygamy continued to be a secret practice. If it wasn’t a secret practice, then when the Nauvoo Expositor exposed it, there would not have been the reaction that resulted in its illegal destruction.
The American frontier has always had polygamy as part of it's history; …….
Again, this doen’t matter a smidgen. Lamanites were not under the jurisdiction of the law then and even today polygamy is illegal to them. Same too with mountain men – there was no projection of law into those areas until much later.
Finally, from
http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/polygamy_illegal.htm
Furthermore, Mormon polygamy was never legal, at any time - not even in the Utah territory from 1847 to 1890.
Marriage is a legal contract between one man and one woman. There has never been a law enacted to allow otherwise. All the married Mormons who emigrated to Utah in 1847 had been married under the civil laws of their respective states; each one of those states had laws against bigamy, thus making monogamy the "common law."
The very reason Brigham Young chose to move to Utah, rather than Oregon, California, or Texas, as others suggested, was because Utah was an uninhabited "no man's land". However, the area was legally Mexican territory and polygamy was illegal in Mexico.
In the United States, marriage is a legal contract regulated by the various states. When the Mormons went to Utah in 1847, all married Mormons at that time had been married under laws of the states they had come from. Utah became U.S. territory in 1848 after the Mexican War, and thus all citizens living therein became subject to the common laws of the nation, including marriage laws. (To use an analogy, you get your drivers' license from your state, but it is recognized as being legal in all the states. Marriage licenses are similar.)
Once in Utah, Young attempted to establish the "Territory of Deseret," and operate the area as a theocracy, under the "Law of the Lord," which included plural marriage and blood atonement. However, Congress rejected Young's attempt, and in 1850, the area was officially established as Utah Territory, with territorial overseers appointed from Washington D.C.. President Millard Fillmore appointed Young as governor. Thus, polygamy became specifically illegal under U. S. common laws in 1850; but, since polygamy was also illegal under Mexican laws beforehand, there was never a time when polygamy was legal in Utah.
The 1862 federal Morrill Act was not the first law which made bigamy illegal; it was merely the first law which specifically reinforced existing state anti-bigamy laws. It was enacted specifically to close the "loophole" that the Mormons mistakenly believed they were operating under.
Even after the passage of the 1862 Morrill Act, the Mormon Church continued to practice polygamy in violation of the law for another half-century, and repeately challenged those laws. So anyone who argues that "The Mormons stopped practicing polygamy when it was made illegal" are either misinformed or misrepresenting the truth.
The final nail on the coffin which demonstrates polygamy's illegality was when Ann Eliza Webb filed for "divorce" from Brigham Young and sued him for alimony in 1877. Young successfully argued that their relationship was "an ecclesiastical affair, not a legal one," and the judge rightly ruled that since there was never any legal marriage, Webb could not file for divorce nor seek alimony.
Since Young himself admitted that his own "plural marriages" were not legal marriages, that means that no other Mormon "plural marriage" at any time was a legal marriage either. No legal marriage licenses were ever applied for nor granted, and every single child born of Mormon "plural marriages" was illegitimate - i.e. not born in a legal marriage.
All of the federal laws enacted against Mormon polygamy from 1862 to 1879 merely served to force the Mormons to comply with existing common laws. But the fact that those additional laws were enacted does not mean that Mormon polygamous marriages were ever legal in the first place.
In 1878, the United States Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Mormon under the federal statute prohibiting bigamy against a challenge that, among other things, the statute infringed on the first amendment right to freedom of religion.
In so doing, the Court noted that polygamy had "always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people."
The U.S. Supreme Court described further that:
at common law, the second marriage was always void (2 Kent, Com. 79), and from the earliest history of England polygamy has been treated as an offence against society. After the establishment of the ecclesiastical [98 U.S. 145, 165] courts, and until the time of James I., it was punished through the instrumentality of those tribunals, not merely because ecclesiastical rights had been violated, but because upon the separation of the ecclesiastical courts from the civil the ecclesiastical were supposed to be the most appropriate for the trial of matrimonial causes and offences against the rights of marriage, just as they were for testamentary causes and the settlement of the estates of deceased persons.
By the statute of 1 James I. (c. 11), the offence, if committed in England or Wales, was made punishable in the civil courts, and the penalty was death. As this statute was limited in its operation to England and Wales, it was at a very early period re-enacted, generally with some modifications, in all the colonies. - U.S. v. Reynolds, 98 U.S. 145, 164-65 (1878) (emphasis added).
The point is, polygamy has always been illegal in "civilized" western Christian cultures.
And, since the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy act, the 1879 SCOTUS Reynolds decision, and the 1882 Edmunds Act all reaffirmed the illegality of Mormon "plural marriage," then why did the Mormon God wait until 1890 to reveal to Wilford Woodruff that the church needed to obey the laws of the land which had already been in force for over 40 years
Isn't Polygamy Adultery?
Polygamy is not Adultery. Polygamy, or in this case more accurately polygyny, is the practice of multiple wives in a marriage, Adultery is sex out side of marriage. Therefore sex in a polygamous marriage is not adultery.
See Jesus’ teaching above on divorce. Adultery was sex while married to another as well as outside of marriage.
Joseph Smith and Polygamy
This topic has a lot of Sub questions:
First we start off with the ol Smitty was a prophet test red herring. He fails that on multiple levels.
A: The short answer is yes, the long answer is no.
Typical spin. The fact is that he did marry these women and have sex with them. Every sex act does not result in pregnancy and the court is still out on actual children from smith’s extra marriages.
A: True, a fourteen year old woman was considered a marriageable age, boys were considered men at the age of twelve and often left home to seek their fortunes by 14.
Marriage statistics for the time period note that the young age of these were the exception and not the norm by any stretch of the imagination.
Q: Didn't Joseph (or the church) teach that you had to practice polygamy in order to be saved?
This first is a misdirected question. Most of the teachings surrounding practicing polygamy for salvation were sourced from Young. Secondly, the teaching was primarily for attainment of godhood.
"The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them." - The Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol 11, p. 269
A: No, less than 1% of the church ever practiced polygamy,
"Recent studies suggest that the number of Mormons living in polygamous families between 1850 and 1890, while varying from community to community and year to year, averaged between 20 and 30 percent. In some cases the proportion was higher. The practice was especially extensive with Mormon leaders, both locally and those presiding over the entire church These calculations would indicate that, during the entire time the principle was practiced, the number of men, women, and children living in polygamous households amounted to tens of thousands." (B. Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 1992), 17.)
"While estimates vary, most scholars agree that between 10 and 20 percent of Mormon marriages before 1890 were polygamous." (Jeffrey Nichols, Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847-1918 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 17; cf. D. Michael Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 329 and Richard Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 91-92, and Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives Than One (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2001), Chapter Six.)
"The extent to which polygamy was practiced in Utah will probably never be known. Plural marriages were not publicly recorded, and there is little chance that any private records which might have been kept will ever be revealed... From information obtainable from all available sources, it appears that there may have been a time when 15 or possibly 20 percent of the Mormon families of Utah were polygamous." (Stanley S. Ivins, "Notes on Mormon Polygamy," in D. Michael Quinn, ed., The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 170-171.)
Needless to say, DU is misrepresenting the numbers.
Q: Didn't Joseph marry women against their will?
A: No, there were women like Helen Mar Kimball who were pressured to marry Joseph by their family, but arranged marriages were also common then and the fact of arrangement by someone else means pressure from outside the individual.
This is another dishonest answer. There are numerous citation from mormon controlled biographies and histories that make it very clear that Smith forced women to marry through a variety of means of coercion.
: Doesn't the Book of Mormon Forbid polygamy?....snip
WOW Pretty strong stuff huh? IF that was in the Bible well I wouldn't be writing this section I would not be defending polygamy as biblical.
Why does it matter where it's from? Well, if the Book of Mormon is scripture, then Joseph Smith is a prophet, if Joseph Smith is not a prophet then who cares what he wrote.
Being accused of circular logic by one deep into the spin cycle as DU is laughable. First, it doesn’t matter that Christians do not accept the validity of the bom on this regard, what matters is that mormon and mormon doctrine hold the up to be their scripture to follow after. This all of course after a rambling diatribe earlier on the biblical morality of polygamy – in contrast to the flat out rejection of it in the bom. What this does point out is the blatant dishonesty of Smith throughout this whole business. Smith’s own revelation of God’s will to the mormon faithful, 1835, declares monogamy to be the only valid marriage for mormons. The mormon church condemned polygamy publically from 1835 – 1845 at least! Joey continually lied about his polygamy time and time again, all the while announcing to the world that mormonism did not sanction anything other than traditional monogamy. This was the law of mormonism 1835 – 1876. Now what is really funny is that somehow DU wants to compare this to God’s acceptance of the repentance of Nineveh to show that God changes His mind. It is interesting how quickly the mormon gods changed their minds when the federal government was enroute to Utah in 1890 to totally disenfranchise all participants in polygamy. Which revelation should one believe, the one pronounced as an everlasting covenant or the one to temporally stop it for a while.
Morality today for most Americans is determined by the Bible. The Bible has no prohibition on polygamy, indeed, the many important prophets had multiple wives polygynous. (Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob) and in at least on instance God says he gave multiple wives as a blessing (David)
As we’ve seen, there were conditions placed upon polygamy through the mosaic covenant and finalized against polygamy by Christ and the teachings of the apostles. Jesus clearly pointed out the allowance in the past due to the hardness of men’s hearts, but that was not God’s plan or will for man.
Here is a page by Mormons on the early "Church Fathers" and their views on Polygamy
Not to accuse DU of quote mining (no, he’d never do that), these citations are contexted on the act within the setting of the patriarchs and mosaic covenant. Two can play that game
1. Justin Martyr (c.160) rebukes the Jews for allowing polygamy:
"Your imprudent and blind masters [i.e., Jewish teachers] even until this time permit each man to have four or five wives. And if anyone sees a beautiful woman and desires to have her, they quote the doings of Jacob." [ANF, vol. 1, p. 266]
2. Irenaeus (c.180) condemns the Gnostics for, among other things, polygamy:
"Others, again, following upon Basilides and Carpocrates, have introduced promiscuous intercourse and a plurality of wives..." [ANF, vol. 1, p.353]
3. Tertullian (c.207) was also explicit:
"Chapter II.-Marriage Lawful, But Not Polygamy. We do not indeed forbid the union of man and woman, blest by God as the seminary of the human race, and devised for the replenishment of the earth and the furnishing of the world, and therefore permitted, yet Singly. For Adam was the one husband of Eve, and Eve his one wife, one woman, one rib. (ANF: Tertullian, To His Wife)
4. Methodius (cf.290) was clear on the issue, arguing that it had stopped at the time of the Prophets:
"The contracting of marriage with several wives had been done away with from the times of the prophets. For we read, 'Do not go after your lusts, but refrain yourself from your appetites'...And in another place, 'Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.' This plainly forbids a plurality of wives." [ANF, vol. 6, p.312]
And one of my favorites from another site: Martin Luther
Yep, and luther was wrong on a lot of things to. He never claimed to be a prophet like Smith
The Bible approves of Polygamy. It's a fact one arrived at by any who actuality study it as these great men have. Here is the formula for anyone who wants to test it: .
This will be a laugh.
A) Great men in the Bible were polygamous and they were specifically approved of by God while polygamous. (Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob...)
Poor logic, God approved of person, person does certain acts, God approves of the acts. Switch a few things around
Great men in the Bible lied, cheated and murdered and they were specifically approved of by God, therefore God approves of those actions. Sorry DU, their approval was not based upon their actions.
B) Nowhere in the Bible is anyone reprimanded or commanded not to have more than one wife.
Matt 19.8-9
1 Tim 3.2 and Titus 1.6
C) God approved of Polygamy then, since he does not change, it's not a big issue for him now. Serial polygamy with divorce and remarriage is however specifically condemned by Jesus.
See my section above regarding Jesus’ teaching about divorce and its relation to polygamy.
My conclusion is that Polygamy is not condemned by the Bible, and I'm in good "Christian" company in that opinion.
Polygamy is not endorsed by the bible either. However, some thoughts here are appropriate from other mormons regarding this topic (http://www.mormonthink.com/polyweb.htm#lied)
Joseph’s plural marriages were not known until Joseph was caught with Fanny Alger. Oliver Cowdery referred to it as a ‘dirty, nasty, filthy affair’. Now suppose for just a minute that this really was an affair as reported by Brother Cowdery, an apostle and one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Why would Joseph make up the preposterous story that an angel with a sword commanded him to practice polygamy (before the sealing power was even restored no less)? Why, because he could. People believed him. They believed his earlier story about an angel, so why not another one? Perhaps the entire practice of polygamy by the saints was inspired by Joseph efforts to cover up an affair? If he was truly in an affair, he would have a hard time justifying his adultery, and he may have lost many, many followers. But he came up with the only excuse that could be justified – God commanded him to. It was so successful that he continued to take more and more women as wives.
Accepting the word of one man.
Once again the Saints are asked to take the word of just one man. No other prophet really claimed that God visited them or sent angels to confirm the practice of plural marriage. If Joseph was mistaken, deluded, deceived by Satan in the form of an angel or lying to cover up his affair, then the entire practice of polygamy was a terrible, unnecessary hardship on untold thousands of people.
Former lds president Gordon B. Hinckley: replied one time I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.
As shown above, it was very clearly illegal since the first polygamous marriage of Joseph Smith in 1833 in Illinois up through the manifesto in 1890 and the 2nd manifesto in 1904. Knowledgeable LDS admit that it was illegal but say that the early saints were obeying a higher law and had to break the earthly laws to obey God’s will regardless of the Church’s articles of faith that promote obeying the laws of the land.
This can be very troubling. It begs to ask the question what if a prophet some time in the future asks us to break the law because he says God commanded him to instruct the saints to violate the laws of the land. Would we do as the prophet commanded just as the saints did in the 1800s and break the laws regardless of the consequences? With a force of 13 million people and growing, that may be willing to disobey the laws of the land on the word of one man, this is something to think about. It seems unconscionable that people would actually blindly obey someone to that extreme – and yet thousands of people did it in the 1800s with no more assurance that it was God’s will than a single man’s word.
Hinkley condemned the practice as not doctrinal and illegal – then as well as now. Unfortunately for all of DU’s spinning, this is the word of the (former) living prophet and seer on the subject. Remarkably he confirms the Christian understanding that polygamy is immoral and illegal under Christ’s teachings.
That is what they all say!
But this is the Lord’s Church
Oh how Blessed be!:)
I don't know where you find the patience to systematically refute DU's voluminous posts, but you have performed an admirable feat.
Hinkley condemned the practice as not doctrinal and illegal – then as well as now. Unfortunately for all of DU’s spinning, this is the word of the (former) living prophet and seer on the subject. Remarkably he confirms the Christian understanding that polygamy is immoral and illegal under Christ’s teachings.
*****
You have no clues to what Pres. HincKley was refering too!
Until I read the context in which it was said!
What those today were doing was illigal and they had no doctrine of any sort to do it!
google: hinckley, polygamy.
took me two seconds.
It's not so much PDF knowledge, but a place to STORE the picture as a JPEG of GIF.
The link works great!
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