[QUOTE=Intravenus De Milo]
There is some very interesting information being brought out in this discussion, I’m glad there are some folks who can provide accurate insight on the LDS church.
In response to the passage above…the idea of the ever-present need for a living prophet caught my eye because I’ve heard Warren Jeffs referred to as such several times in the media. I suppose this raises a few questions for me: first of all, is there a set hierarchical system across the whole LDS church, which would somehow point to whomever could potentially most influence church policy and be considered a “prophet”, either by his contemporaries or by future generations?
Secondly, the fundamentalists aside, is the mainline LDS church itself divided into sects, with slightly different schools of thought drawing off of the same scripture? Someone mentioned that not all of the FLDS follows Warren Jeffs necessarily, so there is apparently a sectarian nature even among the relatively small number of FLDS members.
And finally - and this is thinking about hypotheticals again - what effect might the incarceration of Jeffs have on at least his particular segment of the FLDS? Would his status as a living prophet (and therefore his influence on sect doctrine) be questioned, or would his followers see this as merely a test of their own faith in his word and not change their practices? I would be inclined to say that the latter would happen, given the sect’s isolationist stance and apprehension to outsiders, but it will be interesting to see what happens.
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OK, I had a brilliant answer to this all written out, and the computer gremlins ate it, but trust me, it was worthy of a Nobel Prize in Literature. Sorry, your stuck with this poor shadow of an answer.
First, let me explain the splintered “Mormon Tradition”, by which I mean the various sects and groups that trace their origin to the teachings, writings and revelations of Joseph Smith, including the Book of Mormon. There are many sects that qualify as a part of the “Mormon Tradition”, and you can simplify it into three groups:
- When Joseph Smith died, it was unclear to most followers who was his successor, and dozens of claimants arose. After a few decades, there were three major sects (and a number of smaller ones I wont mention).
a. The followers of Brigham Young, who traveled to Utah in 1847. There was some further splintering, but the main body that descended from this group is the current Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is the group with 13 million members, the missionaries, the commercials, etc. This is the group that I, Dangermom, and a few other board members belong to.
b. The followers of James J. Strang, who traveled to Beaver Island, Wisconsin. This group, in the early years, rivaled Brigham Young’s group. After Strang’s death in 1956, a majority of his followers drifted off to the RLDS Church, but there is still a small group of followers.
c. The Community of Christ, which is the now name of the sect historically known as the RLDS Church. These are the followers of Joseph Smith III, the son of Joseph Smith. This church took a number of years to develop (Joseph Smith III was young when his father died), but it attracted most of the believers that didn’t follow the others. My understanding is that this group has around ½ a million members.
- Those that splintered off of the LDS Church after the LDS Church rejected the practice of polygamy. These are the ones in the news all the time, because they (with one exception) practice polygamy. The FLDS is the largest and best known, but there are a few others (who tend to be less insular, like the United Apostolic Brethren). There are also a few “independent” polygamists, who are often just an unaffiliated small family, like the Singer clan, Ervil LaBaron and a few others. Some of these are really scary, because they often combine fundamental polygamist beliefs with radical freeman type anti-government beliefs.
- Every once in a while, some person claims to have a revelation claiming leadership. So far, none of them have ever gained substantial followings.
As far as I know, all of these groups claim that they are lead by a prophet who receives direct revelation. None of them recognize the leadership or the “mantle of prophet” of any other group. The LDS Church and the Community of Christ have good relations, and allow each other to share buildings for special events, but do not recognize the authority of each other.
As to the future of the FLDS church after the conviction of Warren Jeffs, I will suspect that it will continue. It has survived successions before, even contentious ones (the United Apostolic Brethren and the FLDS church split after a succession dispute back in the early 1950’s, iirc). It has now established more than 70 years of cultural traditions independent of the “Cult of Personality” of one leader. They have always felt like persecuted outsiders, and are likely to go underground, but continue. My hope is, that they will reject Warren Jeffs’ excesses, and return to the more open stance of his father. I don’t think, even if polygamy became legal, that they will ever become mainstream in any real sense.
OTOH, while we certainly consider Moses to have been an inspired prophet, we no longer consider the Mosaic law (temple sacrifices, ancient dietary law, etc.) to be in force.