Women gather with their children at temporary housing in San Angelo, Texas, soon after being removed from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' compound in Eldorado. The children are playing with bubble water.
The roots and beliefs of the Texas sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, go back to the founding of mainstream Mormonism in the 19th century.
In the 1840s, Mormon prophet Joseph Smith taught that "plural marriage" was given to him in a divine revelation and was ordained by God as sacred. As Mormons migrated west, they took polygamy with them.
But in 1890, after Smith's death, the mainstream church disavowed polygamy, partly as a means of gaining statehood for Utah. By 1904, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pledged to excommunicate anyone in plural marriage -- a policy that continues today. Modern Mormons in good standing with the church eschew polygamy as an earthly practice, but they recognize it as a "divine principle" that may apply in heaven.
But some Mormons continued the practice. "These people believe God doesn't change his mind," said Jan Shipps, a prominent historian of Mormonism.
"They felt the main church went astray," Shipps said.
In the early 1900s, polygamous Mormons clustered in the remote southern Utah region called Short Creek in hopes they could avoid church and government oversight. They could not, and all Short Creek polygamists were excommunicated by the church in the 1930s.
Soon, schisms led to multiple polygamous sects, including the sect at the center of the Eldorado raid. Members of that church believe in:
The group is led by a single man known as "the Prophet" who is believed to receive divine revelations from God. The mainstream Mormon church also is lead by a male prophet (currently Thomas S. Monson) who receives divine revelations. But unlike the mainstream church, nothing is done without the permission or direction of the sect's prophet, who arranges all marriages.
Scholars are not certain of the identity of the current prophet. Until his arrest and conviction as an accomplice to rape in 2007, Warren Jeffs was the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Some experts think he continues to guide the group from prison.
Excerpt. The rest at source: The Columbus Dispatch.
| Protesters hold Rally for Texas Children |
|
SALT LAKE CITY -- About 100 people rallied outside the Utah Jazz playoff game Thursday, chanting for Texas to release the children taken into state custody from a polygamist sect.
Signs read "Free the Children" and "Got Constitution?" and people attending the rally chanted "Shame on Texas ... Free those kids!" as fans walked by on their way to the Jazz game against the Houston Rockets. |
|
Excerpt. More at MyFoxUtah. |