THIS BLOG ATTEMPTS TO SHOW HOW SCIENCE IS CATCHING UP WITH REVEALED RELIGION

THIS BLOG IS AN ATTEMPT TO PUT ALL THE COOL STUFF THAT I BUMP INTO ABOUT THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST AND EVENTS THAT LEAD UP TO IT INTO ONE LOCATION.
THE CONTENTS WILL BE FROM AN LDS PERSPECTIVE. IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ANYTHING IN HERE, I DO NOT PARTICULARLY CARE TO ARGUE, UNLESS YOU CAN ADD TO THIS BODY OF WORK. I HAVE AN OPEN MIND, THAT IS WHY I READ STUFF FROM ALL DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES AND SEEK LEARNING FROM THE BEST BOOKS. I JUST AM NOT HERE TO ARGUE ABOUT IT - BUT TO PUT IT OUT THERE WHERE OTHERS CAN PERUSE/PURSUE IT. I TAKE PARTICULAR INTEREST IN HONEST SEEKERS OF TRUTH AND BELIEVE THAT SCIENCE IS REVEALED RELIGION'S BEST ALLY. YOU WILL SEE ALOT OF TOPICS IN THIS BLOG THAT SHOW SCIENCE BACKING - AND SLOWLY CATCHING UP WITH - REVEALED RELIGION.
ENJOY!!

Friday, February 21, 2014

SNUFFER IS IN THE THICK OF IT AGAIN - ON POLYGAMY

I honestly cannot figure this guy out.  Being a good lawyer, he must just love to argue points - for the sake of argument.  At one turn, he is tossing Brigham under the bus and saying he went astray on the whole polygamy thing, and at the next turn, he is pulling quotes out that back up Brigham and that give a perspective that I am more familiar with on the whole polygamy thing.....

We were talking with the Sisters last week after dinner and I was talking of the coming purging and destruction.  I mentioned that we will once again live a full Consecration (if not only due to circumstance) and I furthered that by saying that the full living of that law includes seeing another's need and taking care of it.  That will include making sure that all women have access to the blessings of a posterity - not just the few who happen to have a man in their lives.  I pointed out that there will be a marked decrease in the number of (worthy - and alive) men after the troubles come upon us.  The death toll may well approach 70-90% among the men, depending on the area and the level of attentiveness to God's existing plan.  By necessity, the Saints will be compelled (if they must), by circumstance to live ALL of the laws that God originally laid down for them.

I have not read some of these comments by the early 1900's Brethren before, but I am hardly surprised by them.  I have included more of Denver's writings than I wanted to for a background on the topic, but I have highlighted the ones that back what I have been saying for some time:

The statement by the church says the 1890 Manifesto was "inspired." It reads: "In 1890, the Lord inspired Church President Wilford Woodruff to issue a statement that led to the end of the practice of plural marriage in the Church."  That is not quite true according to actual history. This subject was debated in my High Priests Group a couple of Sundays ago. Some of these fathers and grandfathers have children and grandchildren falling away from the church over the subject of polygamy. Not because the practice existed, but because there is very little candor by the church in its discussion of it. The Manifesto was a political statement. It was a press release to deal with pressure from the Federal Government. It was not "inspired" in the LDS vernacular. Rather it was a desperate attempt to preserve legal rights and church property by making a statement designed to mislead Congress into believing the practice would end.

Heber J. Grant, an apostle at the time, was the publisher and managing editor of the Salt Lake Herald. His paper responded to another newspaper's article that said the Manifesto was a revelation by writing: "[The Tribune] pretends the declaration is a revelation... although no one today has heard anyone except the lying sheet say it was a revelation." (Salt Lake Herald, October 9, 1890.) Heber J. Grant said on September 26, 1890: "I ...feel that it is merely a public announcement of the course which we had already decided in our private councils to adopt. ...Yet I believe greater troubles will follow the prominent Elders in the Church through adoption of this policy." When asked if the Manifesto was a revelation, "President Smith answered emphatically no... he did not believe it to be an emphatic revelation from God abolishing plural marriage." (First Presidency Office Journal, August 20, 1891.) In the trial for the membership of Apostle Matthias Cowley he testified that President Joseph F. Smith informed him the 1890 Manifesto did not "mean anything." Others including George Reynolds, L. John Nuttall, Charles W. Penrose, John Henry Smith and B. H. Roberts all denied the Manifesto was a revelation. To the extent the statement by the church is intended to convey the impression this was an inspired revelation, there is plenty to show that is inaccurate. It would be more correct to say the church reluctantly abandoned the practice as a result of legislation passed by Congress which disincorporated the LDS church, escheated its property, disenfranchised Mormons from voting, disqualified Mormons from serving on juries, and criminalized continued plural marriages. But it was abandoned only as a temporary measure to secure statehood. It was to resume when a state legislature, instead of the US Congress legislating for the Federal Territory of Utah, could pass laws. The United States did not trust Mormons, and required Utah’s state constitution to include the abandonment of plural wives as a condition of statehood. Utah became a state in 1896, but underground plural wives were continued until the Congressional hearings during the Senator Reed Smoot controversy in 1904. President Joseph F. Smith went to Washington, DC and testified under oath about the matter, and subsequently actually ended the practice. The trauma of testifying during these hearings resulted in the "Second Manifesto" written in 1904 by President Joseph F. Smith. This was another attempt to end the underground practice.

Even the 1904 letter didn't actually end it. It just became more secret. Apostles Taylor and Cowley were sacrificed when their continued sealing of plural wives was brought to light by the Salt Lake Tribune. Their trials removed them from the Quorum of the Twelve for failing to discontinue the practice of sealing multiple wives in violation of the 1904 letter (NOT the Manifesto). No one contended in the church court proceedings for Apostles Taylor and Cowley that the Manifesto ended the practice or required them to cease sealing plural wives as early as 1890.

Interestingly related to this topic is the ruling by Judge Clark Waddoups on the issue of plural wives. The Waddoups’ opinion does not legalize plural wives. Instead it decriminalizes private sexual relations between consenting adults which would otherwise violate a criminal statute adopted by Utah. It also does not prevent criminal prosecution of bigamy. The distinction between what is legal and what is illegal is driven by whether the people engaged in the private consensual relationships bothered to purchase a marriage license and seek governmental authorization for their second (or more) marriage. If they did, and they have more than one legal marriage, they violate Utah's bigamy law and can be prosecuted. If they did not, then they are merely engaging in private conduct which is protected by the penumbra of the First Amendment.


As a result of the decision, a man could have concubines, but not plural wives. Which brings to mind a discussion that took place in a meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve on April 5, 1894 (four years after the Manifesto): They discussed concubinage as a means of meeting the technical requirements of the law, while still continuing sexual relationships with multiple women. George Q. Cannon said: "I believe in concubinage, or some plan whereby men and women can live together under sacred ordinances and vows until they can be married. Thus our surplus of girls can be cared for, and the law of God to multiple and replenish the earth can be fulfilled." President Lorenzo Snow added: "I have no doubt but concubinage will yet be practiced by this Church, but I had not thought of it in this connection. When the nations are troubled good women will come here for safety and blessing, and men will accept them as concubines." President Woodruff added: "If men enter into some practice of this character to raise a righteous posterity, they will be justified in it. The day is near when there will be no difficulty in the way of good men securing noble wives." (Spellings corrected.) If you put the decision of Judge Waddoups together with the discussion on April 5, 1894, a resumption of concubinage seems possible. I'm not expecting it to resume with official sanction. But the fundamentalists are going to be perking up in Utah, I assume.

6 comments:

  1. How magnanimous of you to help all those women out with their needs (insert sarcasm here). Seriously, though, I don't think posterity is something promised to everyone on this earth. If large chunks of men are wiped out, it may be that polygamy would be reinstated to keep bringing large amounts of righteous children into the world--raising up a righteous seed. I don't really think that would be something to get excited about though, given the inherent trials of that setup. Men have to be indifferent to their wives and leave them on their own while they attend to other women, women have to be indifferent to their husbands while they are with their other families, and children get to see little of their fathers. The children may be raised in the gospel, but it hardly seems ideal no matter how filled to the brim we are with charity.
    In any case, the idea of polygamy being the eternal ideal means that a man can be rewarded for righteousness with loads of awesome wives and extra posterity. A similarly righteous women can be rewarded with......extra charity so she won't have a problem sharing her husband? It's easy to see how this is a stumbling block for many as it seems to fly in the face of the statement "man and woman are equal before God". Given the convolution concerning the topic and multitude of quotes on both sides, I think you may be overstepping your bounds in declaring your opinion as anything other than that---your opinion. I will always try to do my duty to God, but I think I'll hold off on sewing my harem pillows for now.
    P.S. This post is not to start a discussion on polygamy, LDSFF has plenty of sensible and crazy arguments on both sides, as I'm sure you know.

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  2. LOL - I love some good sarcasm..... No - I hardly think I will have a harem after the mess. My point is - to all those who have pooped on the idea that what Abraham engaged in was either sick or evil, you will have to throw Jesus out with the bathwater (he did highly endorse Abraham, after all). Many, being so full of themselves, and continuing to put the commandments of God at naught, will have to come down a few steps in order to be at any state close to receive what God has said will be. I do not have any idea as to whether I will make it thru what is coming. What I do know - is what God has declared - and that it is coming. I am getting people used to the idea that there will be a massive change and they can either be a part of it - or they can get out of the way, try as they might. There will be NO avoiding it. What is going on in Venezuela and Kiev is coming here..... What we sow/have sown, we are about to reap in spades.

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  3. Most latter-day saints are on board with the fact that we are literally sons and daughters of God (God in this sense being composed of an exalted man and woman who produce offspring, starting on this earth with Adam and Eve). But, most don't consider what we also are.

    Women are trees that bear fruit. Men are fountains of living water. And children are the fruit produced by trees who are fertilized and nourished by fountains of living water.

    Trees aren't fountains of living water. Fountains of living water aren't trees. But, together they produce fruit. Without each other, no fruit would be produced. Neither would there be joy in their posterity.

    When it comes to polygamy, women (trees) are not shortchanged. Neither are men (fountains of living water). Read Lehi's dream and see the symbols.

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  4. While I still have a long way to go in properly living a Christ centered life and holding onto the direction of the living prophets, I don't thing polygamy will meet the needs of the physical church and kingdom of God on earth. The radical egalitarianism of the gospel almost demands the higher law of polyandry. Greed, selfishness, a sense of possession and "owning" another person as a spouse will of necessity need to go away. We may find ourselves indeed having "all things in common."

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  5. In this analogy, the only purpose of marriage is to have posterity, so we would assume that intimacy and "becoming one" with each other in heart and mind are not important since polygamy would necessarily lesson this aspect of marriage. Even if this were so, an equally righteous man and woman would still be unequal in their reward, as a man could have much more posterity (and hence joy) than a woman who only shares in a fraction of his offspring. I have no idea if polygamy is THE plan for the eternities, but I have so far been unable to square it away with men and women holding an equal importance (not to be confused with being the same, of course).

    The following link summarizes my current thoughts on the subject, but I am sure my opinion will change with my understanding of things...

    http://eugeneengland.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/1987_e_001.pdf

    I'll stop now. I promise.

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  6. In the original post, the text "surplus of girls" tells you what you need to know about the social conditions of that era. Perhaps there was a bit of paranoia among the early Saints about getting sealed to someone--anyone--lest you be damned. Many women were sealed to Joseph because their husbands were bums and they thought they'd never make it to heaven. I'm certain that the early Saints generally did not understand how our proxy work would unfold. That said, I think polygamy would be embraced in a situation where the men were dead and gone. Suppose you have one man and five women. Would you rather have one monogamous relationship, with four prostitutes or fatherless children with no support? Or would you rather have the man married to the women and offer support. God cares for the worth and salvation of souls. I don't think he magnifies the intercourse part of it like we do. And there's no jealousy or lust in his kingdom. So, from his point of view, polygamy might be a good thing.

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