SBC’s Land: Polygamy Will Follow Gay Marriage

Newsmax ^ | Monday, 25 Mar 2013 10:24 PM | David A. Patten

[Billthedrill]

Polygamy, no; normalization of pedophilia, yes. That’s just my guess but I think it’s a good one, and it’s already pretty well underway.

[Cboldt]

-- The Supreme Court banned polygamy in a decision in the 1800s --

Reynolds v. US, 98 U.S. 145 (1878)

Utah was required to address polygamy in its constitution, as a condition for admittance to the union.

5. As to the defence of religious belief or duty. ...

Polygamy has 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. At common law, the second marriage was always void ...

Plenty of interesting stuff follows, essentially the court upholding tradition. But, we're in a new age, and what the court is being asked to do now, is to change tradition.

[Jim Noble]

Polygamy is biblical

I was in a rush when I posted. What I should have said was, "at least polygamy is not an abomination"

[Elsie]

At the family reunion; when all the mothers-in-law get together...

[Elsie]

Utah was required to address polygamy in its constitution, as a condition for admittance to the union.

What'll it be boys?

GOD under the bus or statehood???

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    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.

 

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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.

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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.)

 

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What kind of  'Leadership' is THIS???

 

compared to...

 

 

 

 

Hebrews 11:35-40
 35.  Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
 36.  Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
 37.  They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated--
 38.  the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 
 

 

or compared to...

 

Acts 4:19.  But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.

 

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So much for an 'Everlasting Covenant' that thundered out of Heaven!!!

 

Well; it DID last about 47 years!

 

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Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriage...

I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws..."

~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President

 

[Elsie]

What is it about "if a man have two wives" do you find challenging?

Uh...

Assuming that the phrase "at the same time" is missing?

[supercat]

I would add only that polygamy is a much, much smaller step away from traditional Christian marriage than "gay marriage." Polygamy was tolerated in the Bible, even mandated in the limited case of leverite marriage. Polygamy doesn't violate the natural law. Homosexual marriage does.

Fundamentally, there is one aspect of marriage which has been essentially universal throughout history among nearly all societies which continued to thrive after the death of their original founding members: every woman is recognized as either being unmarried, or having exactly one husband, and in the latter situation shall be forbidden from having sexual relations with anyone but the husband without the husband's consent (which he may very well never give). Every marriage must thus involve exactly one man and at least one woman. A union of two men would involve two men and zero women; a union of two women would be slightly less abnormal, and might conform to some societies' norms if the two women brought in a husband.

[longtermmemmory]

(s) so THAT is why there are so many wedding chappels in Las Vegas. (/sarcasm)

[Olog-hai]

Enough of those are open about being ready to dive right into gay marriages should that be “legalized” by the SCOTUS. Talk about a vulture industry.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Well put.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Assuming that the phrase "at the same time" is missing?

Not sure what you mean by that. The Scripture cited above makes it clear that Moses was talking about a man who had two wives at the same time.

[Elsie]

It wasn't 'clear' to me until I read a modern translation that said HAS two wives.

 

Going from experience, ELSIE 'have' two wives - but they were not a the same time.

 

(They was BOTH loved; but life (and our pride) had a bit of conflict ;^)

 

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The preceding verses:

 

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

 

 

So just WHY this fellow would 'have' TWO wives (when one of them is unloved - not pleased with her) when he can send her on her way.

[Elsie]

There is no doubt that polygamy is FOUND in the bible; but whether it is sanctioned by GOD seems to be the sticking point in this thread.

[Gluteus Maximus]

"There is no doubt that polygamy is FOUND in the bible; but whether it is sanctioned by GOD seems to be the sticking point in this thread."

Well, in the passage above, God is setting down rules to govern polygamy, so yeah, He's sanctioning it. No question about it.

[Gluteus Maximus]

You know, I was raised a Catholic, but left the Church about 10 years ago due to the priestly sex abuse scandal. I remain very influenced in terms of catechetics by my Catholic upbringing, for which I am very grateful. Now, my good Protestant friends often impugn Catholic theology with the notion of acculturation - that is, taking on un-biblical ideas from the surrounding culture and giving them some sort of biblical justification, or perhaps none at all.

I find almost all such instances unconvincing - purgatory, Marian devotion, you name it.

But in regard to polygamy, I think that it must be admitted that here we find such a case. St. Augustine himself said that polygamy was biblical, but that the Church should accept monogamy as preferable in the context of his day (it was Roman law and he didn't want problems with Roman civil authorities).

No, we need to deal with the fact that polygamy is tolerated in the Bible.

Rushdoony, my favorite Protestant theologian, I think summed it up best when he said (I'm paraphrasing) that polygamy as a family form is no doubt inferior to lifelong monogamy, but that it is nevertheless "family" and that it should have a place among Christians. This is in his "Institutes of Biblical Law." A wonderful book, by the way.

[Elsie]

No; He’s saying how to deal with it IF and AFTER it happens.

“I’ts not good for man to be alone” didn’t mean for him to have more than one.

Adam only lost ONE rib...

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife(s?) and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you,

[MortMan]

I wondered if I was the only one to catch that reference.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Like I say, there’s no question that monogamy is greatly to be preferred over polygamy. Monogamy is to be the norm. The Bible seems clear about that. But that isn’t to say that God didn’t tolerate polygamy, and even require it in some circumstances, notably leverite marriage. It’s one thing to say that polygamy is disfavored (it is), it’s quite another to say that it’s always illegal (it’s not).

[Elsie]

But that isn’t to say that God didn’t tolerate polygamy, and even require it in some circumstances, notably leverite marriage.

Oh??

The Onan example?

[Gluteus Maximus]

The Onan example?

No, in the case of leverite marriage, as discussed above.