Not necessarily. There was one individual, Jeffrey Lundgren, who was booted out of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now called the Community of Christ) for his preaching. He also embarked on the plural marriage path in addition to murdering people.
They’re a bit sensitive about it because it’s a lot of malarkey laid it their door, so to speak. When the big wigs of TV decide to use the Salt Lake City temple as a backdrop for their stories on people like the FLDS renegade leader, it gives the unwary viewer the idea that we’re the LDS are the very same people as the one on the run.
And it didn’t take long at all for someone to toss in some malarkey about “characteristics necessary to be a member of the priesthood,” did it?
No, my point is that the modern LDS (and anyone who attends the Temple) is very much not about polygamy, and I have no suspicion that the average investment banker or schoolteacher or lawyer or other stake member in SLC or Ogden or St. George is lasciviously gathering up teen brides.
But, (lasciviously or otherwise) B.Y. himself was. In pretty recent memory. And it’s a sore subject (I have always thought it was tough on Mormonism that their foundational period was within living memory – the rough edges of the OT/NT can more plausibly be explained away with, well, but that was in olden times, in wacky Judea).
The polygamy is not made up. And it was mainstream. And the church resisted giving it up, until statehood was predicated on it. Today, polygamy is “malarkey” to any mainstream Mormon I’ve met. Then, it wasn’t, and you can’t tell me the church isn’t still sensitive on this point.
On the priesthood point, I did not get any more specific about the issue because I’m really not trying to throw rocks – but again, that’s a historic creed that was changed (really) recently and that is clearly a source of some self-consciousness and defensiveness. I won’t challenge you to explain the doctrine and its belated revocation (this is after all GQ) if you won’t deny that it’s a really awkward issue within the church or at the church:world interface, in practice.
Nowhere did I say that my church’s history of polygamy was malarkey. What I said was malarkey is the coupling of my church today with those folks who do practice it today.
Regarding the priesthood being opened to “all worthy male members,” I suggest you read the church’s website on the matter.
I haven’t seen the show so if they were showing the Temple and hinting that current mainstream Temple Mormons loved them some polygamy, then that’s silly and oversimplistic and an elision of past and present and entirely predictable for a medium (popular television) that indulges in all said vices routinely.
On the priesthood:
This is pretty much exactly how I recalled it. To be blunt, when polygamy became politically unsustainable (when statehood was pending), a “revelation” came along renouncing it. When excluding blacks became unsustainable in the decade following Civil Rights, lo, another well-timed revelation.
Sorry, I didn’t want to dwell on this, but this is not a shining era or issue for the church, and the LDS website’s treatment is even less impressive than I remember (seriously, what’s up with the “long-promised day” stuff? “We really, really wanted some brothas up in the priesthood, but God was all delayed with the revelation and stuff.”).
I will point out that the church is today quite active in Brazil and other dusky-hued regions of the world, having embraced the revelation (and, cynically, having found that there are incremental numbers to be added among the fast-breeders of the world, who are mostly not Scandinavian these days).
The way I understand it, one of the news shows used the Temple as a backdrop when they were reporting the FLDS leader being on the lam.
I haven’t seen the show either. Mainly because I’m not even close to where it would be shown.
A linguist? Citing the dictionary as evidence? Seriously, Monty, you should know better.
While I certainly respect the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ goal of making it clear that they are not associated with practitioners of plural marriage, I don’t know of any term besides “Mormon” that can properly be used to describe all of the members of what Wikipedia at least terms the “Latter Day Saint Movement”. Since all these folks look to the Book of Mormon as scripture, “Mormon” seems like a reasonable term. The desire of the CoJCoLdS to “own” the term seems very much like the pernicious attempts of some Fundamentalist Christian groups to define the term “Christian” in such a way that it excludes (among others) Mormons. We’ve discussed terminology used to describe Mormonism before, and you know I have a good deal of respect for your church and your beliefs. But I think defining “Mormon” as strictly referring to Latter-day Saints is oddly illogical (as other, non-LDS groups use the Book of Mormon and that pearl thing and the other Mormon scriptures) and awkward, as it leaves no simple way to refer to members of the Latter Day Saint movement as a whole.
Sure it can, but folks who use it that way need concern themselves with possible trademark infringement:
You say Jello, I say Knox flavoured Gelatin.
Sure, why shouldn’t a linguist cite a dictionary to counter a claim that a particular usage is wide-spread?
The point is that, in my experience, none of the members of those “other churches” has ever used the term Mormon to refer to themselves. On the contrary, the ones I’ve met (usually members of the CoC) have been quite vocal in saying that they are most assuredly not Mormons. An additional point is that the mainstream media, to include the big news outfits, loves to couple the salacious news with my church when there is no justification for it other than incompetence.
Because most dictionaries tend to be spotty in their coverage of terms that are widespread. I’ve even run into dictionaries that don’t contain the pronunciation “nucular”. 
Well, if that’s the case, then I won’t argue - but how might I refer to members of the CoJCoLdS, the CoC, and those hundred million little sects centered in Independence, Missouri? Is there no term to describe all of them at once?
Beats me; however, I do like the expression “Restorationish Churches,” but then that’s just my personal preference.
er, that would be Restorationist Churches.
Did you even read the entry you linked to? 'Cause it sure as hell doesn’t seem to support your position, making as it does no reference to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Instead, it refers only to the rather vague and undefined “Mormon Church”.
If you consider a dictionary entry as proof of a definition being widespread, then perhaps you ought to refer to Merriam-Webster, which clearly defines the terms “Mormon” and “Latter-day Saint” in the sense I refer to:
Clearly the qualifier “especially” would not be necessary in the first definition if the term referred only to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m sure other dictionaries say the same thing. (I would consult my university’s OED but it seems to be offline at the moment.)
Furthermore, Wiktionary and Wikipedia both define “Mormon” in the general sense:
Since their articles are formed by the consensus of dozens or even hundreds or thousands of writers, all active speakers of the English language, I would take them as a better indicator of colloquial usage than any printed dictionary whose entries are written by at most a handful of scholars.
Wow, what a hijack this. Sorry I have no info relating to the terminology questioned.
My two cents:
I went to a Presbyterian church as a child. I was also called a Protestant. But then, I was also a christian. So, one single church has three “labels” so to say. And they’re all correct.
Let’s just do away with the labels and people can believe whatever they choose to believe in.
About “the Journey”: I can only vaguely recall one reference to “the Journey” on the show, and I believe that was when Roman was talking about his guitar being brought over on “the Journey”. I presumed that he was referring to the trek made by Brigham Young and the early Mormons into the west, eventually settling in Utah.
Of course, if I’m incorrect, y’all feel free to correct me.
Only if you are using the term in commerce (as a identifier of the source of goods or services) in one of the commercial industries listed in the registration. We here at the boards, however, can use the term however we want with impunity.
Yes, I did. Additionally, I wasn’t a jerk about it either.
I did see the show. Actually, it was not a “show” per se, but a news clip on CNN at the time Warren Jeffs (the FLDS leader) was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list. In the middle of the story, they showed a full screen picture of the Salt Lake Temple (immediately identifiable to most people as a symbol of the LDS church). On top of the picture they superimposed a photo of Warren Jeffs, while the voiceover was saying, “Jeffs is the ‘prophet’ of a religious group that practices polygamy.”
It made me so angry that I got up in the middle of the night and fired off an email to CNN.
Yes, let’s make it completely impossible to describe anyone, ever! Labels make it far to easy to communicate! We must get rid of them all!
Try to be accurate.
From that entry (bolding already in the entry):
That would be a reference to Latter-day Saint as A=A.