Well, I don’t think I used quite the right word, but I con’t think of the right way to put it. They’re optional for God to put into effect, is what I mean, in the time that they’re appropriate. The Big Ten are non-negotiable; you still have to honor your parents if you want your days to be long on this earth. 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.
Alphaboi, I’ll have to go look that up. I’m not sure about that.
“Optional commandment” might be the wrong choice of words in this case, but they do exist. (More about that in a moment.)
I believe, as a practicing member of the LDS church, that the Lord gives commandments in order to guide and direct His followers, and the commandments can change depending on the facts and circumstances of the times. For example, the fact that Members of the church are told not to offer animal sacrifices does not mean that the commandments to the ancient Isrealites to offer them are invalid. It is no more inconsistant that God treats his children differently based on their individual circumastances and abilities, than it is for me as a father to tell my 6 year old not to play with matches and telling my 13 year old boy scout to light the campfire.
(There are “optional commandments”, in a way. God has expressed a desire that we enter into certain covenants, such as baptism, if we are ready. I also have taken on some voluntary commandments, such as wearing temple garments, which are not required of someone who hasn’t volunteered to enter into those covenants.)
As to the FLDS thing. I think I have mentioned before that I had friends among the members. Back in the 1980’s, I went to a youth leadership development camp (by winning an essay contest sponsored by our local electric utility) where there were a number of FLDS youth. Sure, they dressed unusually, and didn’t come to the dances we held during the camp, but all in all, they were well spoken, well educated, and fun to be around. I was friends with a few of them for a few months, afterward, until we just drifted apart.
I attribute the changes to the sickness and death of Rulon Jeffs, who by most accounts really cared for his followers. He had some unusual beliefs, but he was somewhat tolerant of his followers engaging with the outside world. His son, Warren, is a whole different matter. When he took over, the children were homeschooled, the lost boys were exiled, and they went from a quirky but generally benign group to the frightening sect you see today.
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.
It’s not surprising that Jeffs calls himself a prophet; the need for a living prophet is a major tenet of the LDS Church, one of Joseph Smith’s central teachings, and the belief that we regular Mormons are in apostasy and Jeffs is the true prophet is what gives him his power over his followers. Most LDS splinter groups have their own prophet, AFAIK.
In the mainstream LDS Church, there is indeed a system. We have 12 apostles and the First Presidency, which is a trio of the President of the Church (the prophet) and two counselors, who are also apostles. The apostles and the FP work together to run the Church (along with a whole bunch of officers below them). When the President dies–as just happened a little while ago–the apostle who is next in line by seniority succeeds him as prophet. It’s not like the Pope, where cardinals get together and discuss and do a sort of vote–it’s just a simple succession. We had a thread on this a little while ago, that might help you.
Not really. There have been splinter groups here and there–the most famous is the former RLDS Church, now the Community of Christ, which was originally headed by Joseph Smith III. There are a bunch of different tiny ones, some polygamous and some not. But the mainline LDS Church does not have different sects like, say, the Baptists do. We might argue a lot and have a lot of differing opinions but it’s all within the family, so to speak; when it comes down to it we’re all looking to the same leadership and attending the same temples and Sunday meetings.
I’ll leave the rest of your question to Reloy, who knows a lot more about this than I do.
The church elders allowed access to the outside world for only a few men and on only rare occasions. Are you saying American social standards are responsible for the isolation of this group? If you’re making a case for just the men, fine, but the women were physically forced to stay, they simply weren’t just trapped in a mentality.
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.
I don’t think that’s what the public is concerned about. It’s the fact that young girls are institutionally being mistreated, and as you say, ‘will go underground’.
No no, I’m not saying that at all. What I was referring to was the degree of coercion to stay within the narrow FLDS community that its members (especially the women) apparently faced that went BEYOND physically restraining them in their homes or whatnot. For example, the 16 year old girl who tipped off authorities to raid the TX compound claimed that she was told that, were she to ever leave the fold and join the outside world, she would be “forced”, among other things, to wear makeup, get her hair cut, and have sex with many men (the last one smacking of the pot calling the kettle black, really) - all of which is obviously a ruse to scare her into staying and not seeking help from outsiders.
I bring all of this up because one common way that cult leaders have managed to maintain their flocks so diligently is to pretty much make up lies about how horrible the outside world is, so that their followers will not WANT to leave. Physically deterring people from leaving can only go so far, but I believe that mental coercion is a BIG part of the reason why not more of the women in Jeffs’ sect have come forward thus far.
The mental coercion is most sects and cults is enormous, and amounts to brainwashing. “If you leave, the outside world will hate and want to kill you, God will smite you and damn you for all eternity, and you will not be allowed to return. We are your only friends. Everyone else hates us.”
Better the devil you know than the unknown. And a lie repeated often enouigh will be believed.
What you don’t have is polygamy for this lifetime. Polygamy in the next world is still the accepted principle of the Mormon faith. From my post in the current GQ thread,
Mormonism has undertaken a tremendous mainstreaming since the 60s and 70s when I was growing up in the faith in Salt Lake City. There was less denial of its unique teachings. We accepted that were different and believed very differently than other sects.
Polygamy and eternal progression, the concept that God was once a man and we all have the potential to become gods in the next life are two examples of elements of faith which used to be more commonly accepted. It was acknowledged that polygamy was not currently practiced, but the principle wasn’t downplayed or denied.
While the majority never practiced it, polygamy wasn’t rare either. One estimate I read recently was about 25%, although this varied by region. Southern Utah seems to have a higher occurrence with 40% of St. George families in 1890. Clearly, this isn’t the “small minority” which is claimed in an earlier post.
Wow, you’ve really gone to some interesting lengths to prove that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is still practicing polygamy. Odd thing, though, is that we’re not practicing it and the United States and most other countries are not attempting to enforce their laws in the afterlife.
In your opinion, how is the LDS view different from that of other faiths where someone hopes “to be reunited with their spouse in Heaven” after the spouse dies and the surviving spouse re-marries?
Not at all. I’m not attempting to say, let along attempting to prove that the Mormon church is currently practicing polygamy. It’s not, and I have never stated otherwise.
However, I find it interesting to see how it’s being downplayed. Dangermom’s assertion that it was only a “small minority” is silly given the sizable number and the prominence of people who did participate. Pretty much the whole leadership at the time was polygamous.
I am just clarifying for people that the principle of polygamy hasn’t changed and it’s the expectation that it will again be restored in the next world.
Which other faiths would these be and what are their beliefs? Do they believe in polygamy like Mormons do?
Yeah they would, and all the men in the country would be mormons.
But seriously how does the system work for the FLDS? Do the female members of the sect greatly outnumber the males or are there scores of single guy members waiting in line?
Sounds like paradise! I must visit there for my next vacation!
Q-What’s the punishment for polygamy?
A-Multiple mothers-in-law.
I have no cite, but I heard an argument long ago that there weren’t enough men so they were allowed to marry multiple women. With the female infanticide in China, I wonder if their population could end up in a reverse situation: multiple husbands for one wife.
I think it was Donahue that had a polygamist on, years and years ago, and the wives said they loved it…they didn’t want the hassles of a “full” husband, i.e. catering to 100% of his needs. IIRC the family sold magazine subscriptions to support themselves.
The Lost Boys. Basically, most of the males are exiled at adolescence for incredibly tiny infractions (mostly as an excuse to get rid of them). In areas where the FLDS has compounds, there is a huge homeless problem with teen boys from that FLDS community flooding the nearest mainstream community, often completely confused and mentally traumatized, since they’ve been told all their lives that the outside world was evil and hated them and then were dumped into it with no transition.
That is a very disingenuos comment from you. You are parading it time and again because of the shock value: “The Mormons really, really do still believe in polygamy.”
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.