Show...
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HATE!!!
Posted on 05/06/2008 10:18:16 AM PDT by Utah Girl
The historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took issue Monday with a New York Times opinion piece comparing FLDS polygamists in Texas to 19th century Mormons.
In a statement released Monday, church historian Elder Marlin K. Jensen took exception to author Timothy Egan's portrayal in the Times.
"Mr. Egan's cavalier comparison of FLDS polygamy practices with those of 19th century Latter-day Saints is historically unsupported and simply wrong," wrote Elder Jensen, a member of the church's Quorums of Seventy. "By implication, he also unfairly impugns the integrity of all Latter-day Saint marriages and families, the very institutions they hold most dear."
In a piece posted on the Times Web site April 23, Egan called the polygamists in west Texas "1870s Stepford wives" and "men with their low monotones and pious, seeming disregard for the law on child sex." And Egan drew parallels between present-day FLDS members and 1800s Mormons.
In his response, Elder Jensen wrote, "The conditions surrounding the practice of polygamy in Texas today bear little resemblance to the plural marriage practiced by Mormons more than a century ago," he said. "As thoughtful historians know, a serious study of history does not impose contemporary understandings and sensibilities onto an interpretation of earlier time periods."
Elder Jensen also said Egan's tacit claim that 19th century Mormon women were subservient and backward was false. Women played an integral part in LDS culture, held jobs and were politically active, Elder Jensen said.
"For a long time ... the church was at odds with basic American ideals, and not just because old guys sanctioned marital sex with dozens of teenage girls," Egan wrote. "What you see in Texas — in small part — is a look back at some of the behavior of Mormonism's founding fathers."
"Smith was fortunate enough to find a religious cover for his desire," Egan continued. "His polygamy 'revelation' was put into The Doctrine and Covenants, one of three sacred texts of Mormonism."
In his response, Elder Jensen wrote that men and women often married at a younger age than might be considered acceptable today. A girl marrying at 15 was not uncommon and the common-law marriage age for women was 12, he said. Women were not forced into marriages and divorces were "readily granted," Elder Jensen wrote.
Attempts Monday night to contact Egan for comment were unsuccessful.
Online:
• Column by New York Times Op-Extra columnist Timothy Egan (April 23)
• Response by Elder Marlin K. Jensen, Church Historian, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (May 5)
” I have seen nothing that would lead me to the word ‘cult’...and the LDS Church is about as far from that as you can get what with all the semi-autonomous powers the local Bishops and Stake Presidents have.”
“What you have on these threads is a small group of people who have always (down thru history you can spot them a mile away) tried to re-invent God thru their own hatred. They are on these threads trying to pass of their hatred as something from God. It isn’t. When I read the New Testament I have always been amazed at how many times, and in how many ways, Jesus talks about LOVE. About loving your enemies....about loving those that speak ill of you. Those on these threads who offer nothing but hate obviously do not have the Spirit of Christ within them.
Ignore them. Feel sorry for them. Pray for them.
But you will not get them to change their minds....and they will continue to spout out hate against the LDS.
I’m proud of the LDS friends and neighbors. I’m going thru some major medical problems right now....and my LDS friends and neighbors are helping every single day to cope with the problems. I never asked...they just acted. They are acting more Christ-like than any ‘Mormon Hater’ on these threads.”
If you are interested any longer, your Catholic faith has a different position on Mormonism than you do, even with the label of cult.
Baptism not accepted:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010605_battesimo_mormoni_en.html
Non Christian:
http://www.catholic.com/library/noncatholic_groups.asp
Cult:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10570c.htm
Catholic bishops told to withhold parish information from Mormons:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9151351?source=rss
It's hell when it comes back atcha!
Sounds like someone who has sat under the tutelage of Prof. Robert Millet!!
Show...
Me...
HATE!!!
Probably one of them cafeteria Catholics: a little of this; a little of that...
The RLDS do it the other way around though.
The LDS Church’s PR machine has done a strikingly poor job of handling this FLDS affair. They seem to have decided to aggressively take the position that there’s no connection whatsoever between the FLDS and LDS, taking a tone along the lines of “What are you, stupid? Why would you ask us about the FLDS?” When the inevitable follow-up question is posed, “But didn’t your church once practice polygamy like the FLDS do?”, the curt response always seems end up in print, even in clearly pro-LDS publications, as some paraphrase of “We stopped doing that in 1890”.
Ummm, stopped doing WHAT? Holding women and girls prisoner, with no contact with the outside world, forcing them into marriage at an early age, reassigning wives and children to men favored by the leaders, throwing “excess” adolescent boys out into the wilderness to fend for themselves? Hardly. But by repeatedly insisting on bringing the conversation to a quick close with “we don’t do that anymore”, that’s certainly the impression that people unfamiliar with LDS history are left with.
What’s also striking is that, in spite of its energetic proselytizing program, the LDS Church hasn’t made even the slightest hint of a public overture to the adults (particularly the women) from this FLDS compound, whose lives have just been turned upside down, that it hopes these people who believe the Book of Mormon is scripture and believe Joseph Smith was a prophet will considering investigating the LDS Church, and perhaps converting. After all, many of these adults are questioning their beliefs right now, what with Warren Jeffs “prophecies” blowing up right and left, but probably not at a point where they want to dump their belief in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. And many of the women are going to end up facing a choice of either leaving the FLDS Church and their polygamous marriages, or permanently losing custody of their children. Obviously, any move to proselytize the children would be inappropriate (even though I’ve heard a first hand FReeper report of this being done by a Methodist group which is caring for some of the children). But gentle overtures to the adult women (and perhaps some of the not yet multi-wived young men) would seem like a great way to ease some of these people into mainstream society, bringing their children along with them, and bringing new, hard-working members into the LDS Church.
In its eagerness to make a show of “this FLDS affair has nothing to do with us”, the LDS Church is coming across as conspicuously lacking in Christian charity, as many other Christian denominations rushed into action, working to house the children and women with nursing infants. It’s only the LDS Church taking the public attitude that “we don’t give a crap about these people”. Big, big PR mistake, IMO.
Good to see you back on the threads!
Nobody ever said 14-16 was the norm, but it was very common, especially in rural areas, perfectly legal, and routinely sanctioned by all mainstream churches.
There’s also a huge gap in the current average age for women’s marriage in the US, and the lowest age that most of us would consider healthy and reasonable. Per the US Census Bureau, the average age at which women married from 2000-2003 was 25 (and in the Northeast it’s nearly 27). But it would obviously be ludicrous for somebody a century from now to claim that this is proof that marrying at 19-20 would have been viewed by most people in our time as inappropriate and evidence of subjugation or abuse. Yet that’s exactly how you’re using the statistics you’re citing for time periods when the average marriage age was 20.
My great-grandmother (not Mormon!) married at 17 in 1899, to a man in his early thirties, after a courtship of over 2 years. Nobody in town saw anything wrong with a man this age openly courting a 15 year old. They were married in a mainstream Protestant church. They were an ordinary family of above-average means, in a midwestern farming and mining town. Her husband went on to become the president of the local bank. If they had been of lesser means, they probably would have married when she was 15, but she was attending a nice private school in town, and he had a comfortable job as a bank teller (i.e. no need for a wife to start helping him build up a farm), and there was no rush.
If the FLDS were running an open society, where members were choosing to stay in the group of their own free will, having plenty of opportunity to learn about alternatives (e.g. as the Amish youth do), and entering into marriages of their own free will, I don’t think most people would have a big issue with it if a lot of their girls were marrying at 14. But given that they are being imprisoned, brainwashed, and forced into marriage, I (and I think most people) wouldn’t be okay with it even if they never had a woman marry before age 25.
I’m not interested in their persecution, just the fact that more than a couple freepers seem to be keenly interested in IDENTIFYING the Mormons around here, either asking directly, or making offhand comments guessing about people’s religious affiliation.
Maybe there are threads where people try to label others as Catholic, or Jewish, or Presbyterian, but I haven’t noticed it.
I haven’t done much research, but the only historical records I can find easily deal with the era from 1890 on.
I’m not refuting your claim, just saying that so far I’ve seen people mention these historical documents, but I can’t find them anywhere I’m looking.
I’m not making any judgment, comparative or otherwise, about religions. I’m discussing the desire some freepers have to learn whether other posters are Mormons.
“In fact, men and women often married at a much younger age in the 19th century than we find acceptable today. Historian Kathryn Daynes, who has studied the subject in depth, says that although the female average age at marriage in the United States during the nineteenth century was twenty or older, a girl marrying at age 15 was not uncommon and certainly was not considered abused.”
Some more facts about that...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2012278/posts
How come you never came back and looked at the post I mentioned?
Been busy?
You are discussing the alleged crimes of a person.
I was discussing the generalization of the comparison between two religions.
I’m not actually discussing the specifics of those two religions, just whether it is a fair comparison to claim they are identical.
Note that in this case, we MUST look at the group as a whole, because the charge was made about the group as a whole.
Whereas elsewhere I argue that we can’t look at the group, because the law targets individuals, not membership in groups.
If someone was arguing that some leader of FLDS compared to some leader of LDS, I wouldn’t bother to join the discussion.
I think we all do a lot of lecturing, telling other freepers what they should do instead of what they are doing.
It sure would have saved some lines of posting if you had just SAID that when I asked why you said they were identical.
I’d still would have disagreed, but we would have advanced the discussion.
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