Surprised this apologetic view of polygamy hasn't come up here yet

[LA Ute]

I think you're splitting hairs, peluquero.

Okay, here's where I blow you away with astonishing admissions:

• I think there is obviously a relationship between our church and the splinter groups.
  
• I think the splinter groups are not so very different from us in many ways, including those you list.
  
• I think it's normal for people to lump us all together.

There's no need to refute my position on these points. We are in sweet agreement! Time to move on now, mi amigo sabio y sensato.

[TripletDaddy]

Okay, here's where I blow you away with astonishing admissions:

• I think there is obviously a relationship between our church and the splinter groups.
  
• I think the splinter groups are not so very different from us in many ways, including those you list.
  
• I think it's normal for people to lump us all together.

There's no need to refute my position on these points. We are in sweet agreement! Time to move on now, mi amigo sabio y sensato.

I knew it!

[Joe Public]

My lovely wife, a multi-generational member from St. George, and a trained sociologist, really gets freaked out by studies, images, and depictions of FLDS and other polygamist sects that are "offshoots" of our church. Her words go something like this:



They're not so different from us, and that's the unnerving point of posts like DDD's. It's perfectly normal for people to lump us all together, because, unlike Luther's complaints against the Catholic Church, theirs was but one, originally, one that we've refuted yet never removed from our canonized scriptures. D&C 132 seems to me as odd to find in the scriptures as the 18th Amendment looks when reading the Constitution.

I remember watching a 20/20-type show on the FLDS back when the construction in Texas was in the news (but before the raid). They showed a brief clip from a FLDS Sunday meeting. It was a fast and testimony meeting, and the similarities were striking. A lady - who looked like any other early-60s grandmother in the LDS wards/branches I've attended - shared some words. She talked about having a feeling all week that she would be prompted to go to the podium, etc. It was just like any testimony meeting I've heard in the LDS church. The three men in suits who were sitting on the podium behind her were even trying to hide their droopy eyelids by bowing their heads and trying to look contemplative.

I've never attended an FLDS meeting, and that was the first look I had at their practices. If someone had shown me the clip and told me it was an LDS meeting, I would have fully believed it.

[Jeff Lebowski]

No, we are the splinter denomination. Not in terms of organizational legacy, perhaps, but in practice. Consider that Martin Luther looked at the church and pointed out all the things he thought were wrong, nailed them to his door, and changed practice and theology. On our side, the mainstream LDS church changed it's practice and theology and the FLDS didn't follow suit. Both of those examples are grossly simplified, but when you view this as an exercise in doctrine and theology and not one of organization the analogy is backwards.

I can certainly see how that argument would apply in terms of polygamy, but outside of polygamy, do you think the FLDS is closer to original Mormonism than the LDS church? I guess I don't know enough about the FLDS church to judge, but it is an interesting question.

[Pheidippides]

I can certainly see how that argument would apply in terms of polygamy, but outside of polygamy, do you think the FLDS is closer to original Mormonism than the LDS church? I guess I don't know enough about the FLDS church to judge, but it is an interesting question.

Absolutely, yes. At least if you are talking about Brigham Young to John Taylor era - a long spanish but only two prophets. I think the church changed drastically from the JS to BY eras so it does break down a bit. And I think we have differing elements - our organization is probably more similar, especially if you remove correlated elements. Their original starting point was "we may not have the prophet but we have the priesthood." So the groups of that vintage didn't really start trying to have a prophet, qofa, etc.

I will admit that I need to read up more but it's my understanding, for example, that FLDS use garment patterns much closer to the pre-1923 standards. And certainly rhetorically they are much more like the BY era - I've actually listened to a Jeffs sermon or two.

In the end, though, it's hard to divorce polygamy from the equation because it is/was such a defining and prominent doctrine.

[Mr. Mcgibblets]

I believe the FLDS still believe the Adam-God doctrine as was taught and believed by Brigham Young and a few other apostles from that same period.

From what little I understand about the FLDS, they believe they have the same priesthood keys and received the keys for practicing celestial marriage directly from John Taylor (who gave them to John W. Woolley, Taylor's bodyguard).

The FLDS appear very similar in belief and practice to Mormons of the Brigham Young and John Taylor time period. I think there's a good argument that the FLDS are closer to that era of Mormonism than the current LDS church. If Brigham Young visited today I would imagine he would feel more at home doctrinally in Colorado City than Salt Lake.

[Paperback Writer]

I will admit that I need to read up more but it's my understanding, for example, that FLDS...

What I've always found interesting is the FLDS interpretation and practice of the WofW. It appears to me to be closer to the early saints prior to the temperance movement and prohibition. And I’m not so sure that the FLDS are “wrong” on this one; especially the part in v. 2 of section 89: “To be sent greeting, not by commandment or constraint…”.

In the end, though, it's hard to divorce polygamy from the equation because it is/was such a defining and prominent doctrine.

Polygamy is/was a defining point. I've wondered what would have occurred in the "alternate reality" if the federal government would have just left Utah alone. Today, would mainstream LDS be very similar to FLDS? Would the rank and file have forced a conservative LDS leadership into a "revelation". One of the differences I see between LDS and FLDS is in the level of education. Perhaps that is a "saving grace" in the modern American LDS church - the high level of education of the rank and file. I think highly educated believers can be an agent of change (although external factors seem to be the catalyst). But I don't know - there's the ill-thought Prop 8 campaign. I would have hoped the rank and file faithful would have just ignored the directive from leadership but my gut tells me that not enough did.

[Pheidippides]

I believe the FLDS still believe the Adam-God doctrine as was taught and believed by Brigham Young and a few other apostles from that same period.

From what little I understand about the FLDS, they believe they have the same priesthood keys and received the keys for practicing celestial marriage directly from John Taylor (who gave them to John W. Woolley, Taylor's bodyguard).

The FLDS appear very similar in belief and practice to Mormons of the Brigham Young and John Taylor time period. I think there's a good argument that the FLDS are closer to that era of Mormonism than the current LDS church. If Brigham Young visited today I would imagine he would feel more at home doctrinally in Colorado City than Salt Lake.

I would distinguish between keys and the priesthood itself. The original dissenters didn't view themselves as having the keys to apostleship, etc. They did view themselves as having priesthood. There was a lengthy letter debate between Joseph Fielding Smith and one of the leaders of the predecessor to the FLDS (can't remember the name - see the BCC correlation series) about whether or not the church was necessary for the priesthood. The FLDS leader view was that the church was dependent for its very existence on the priesthood, so of course the priesthood was independent of the church. Whereas JFS said it was like spirit and body (priesthood being spirit) and spirit can't leave body until body is dead. This, of course, was countered by the assertion that it didn't matter since the church/body was, in fact, dead (it having been legally dissolved in the 1880s by act of Congress, among other things; the "church" we know now is not the same legal entity JS started, although I'm not sure that's relevant as far as I'm concerned). I have to say I find Brother FLDS' view more persuasive on that point from an abstract point of view.

[Flystripper]

I think you guys are being a little too hard on her.

I'm actually pretty OK with an apologetic argument that God was using polygamy as an Abrahamic test on the church. And in order for it to be an Abrahamic test, Joseph and the rest should not be told it's an Abrahamic test, right? So it's reasonable that he would explain it with the best logic he could to the church.

It's a stretch, but I've seen a lot bigger stretches from the Apologetics community.

I made this argument whilst on my mission in 1993. It isn't a new argument. I think it is completely bogus, but it really isn't new.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Channel 4 in Utah had a story on last night about a rare book dealer who had Journal of Discourses type books from FLDS prophets. He also had an Ipod with a ton of Warren Jeffs talks. One beauty played by Channel 4 included Warren Jeffs' thoughts on the "Negro" race. On that front, the FLDS is a lot closer to the BY era than the mainstream LDS church.

[Moliere]

. If Brigham Young visited today I would imagine he would feel more at home doctrinally in Colorado City than Salt Lake.

Let's hope so as I'd consider that a positive thing.

[Sullyute]

If Brigham Young visited today I would imagine he would feel more at home doctrinally in Colorado City than Salt Lake.

Let's hope so as I'd consider that a positive thing.

ZING!

[NorthwestUteFan]

The FLDS appear very similar in belief and practice to Mormons of the Brigham Young and John Taylor time period. I think there's a good argument that the FLDS are closer to that era of Mormonism than the current LDS church. If Brigham Young visited today I would imagine he would feel more at home doctrinally in Colorado City than Salt Lake.

First, I dig the reference to "The League". Funny show (featuring a former Miss Maine; Green Monstah approves).

Second, I recognize the tendency I have to view the historical church (pre-SLC) through modern day lenses. I remember thinking, "why would anybody persecute the church and force them to leave the state? They just want to love their fellow man and be happy". Then when I look at the FLDS groups and instead realize that it was THIS type of religion that was being chased from the state then it suddenly makes much more sense to me.

Of course the irony of this case was Jeffs hiding behind 'prohibiting free exercise of religion' as though polygamy itself was on trial. He was on trial for 'marrying', and subsequently consumating said marriages, to very young teenaged girls (12 and 15?).

Looking back at the history of the early church we see a number of highly dubious practices, all related to polygamy. Marrying women who were already married, JS sending a husband out of the country on a mission to marry his wife who was left behind, BY doing some strange things (eg 'revoking' the priesthood from black members), etc, and the link becomes closer.

I have to say I understand why some outsiders have such strong sense of antipathy towards the church.

[Pheidippides]

Channel 4 in Utah had a story on last night about a rare book dealer who had Journal of Discourses type books from FLDS prophets. He also had an Ipod with a ton of Warren Jeffs talks. One beauty played by Channel 4 included Warren Jeffs' thoughts on the "Negro" race. On that front, the FLDS is a lot closer to the BY era than the mainstream LDS church.

Ah, yes. I've also heard that sermon. Enlightened discourse of course.

[NorthwestUteFan]

Ah, yes. I've also heard that sermon. Enlightened discourse of course.

Viewed through the lens of our own modern church experiences we certainly will roll our eyes at that type of rhetoric. I am left wondering whether we would also roll our eyes if we lived 170 years ago and heard JS give a sermon? How about BY? Any others? Was much of what we claim to be Divinely inspired revelation simply a fiery rhetoric which included certain 'key words', delivered by a spiritual speaker with a strong speaking voice and a magnetic personality? Philosophies of men, mingled with scripture?

In primary we are correlated/taught that the church is the same today as it was 150+ years ago, 2000+ years ago, etc. When we look closer we realize it is significantly different than it was 100 years ago and that the early prophets were more similar to people we now consider to be 'wackos', than they were to simple, pure, inspired men of God.