[FaithfulSkeptic]

QuestionAbound wrote:

Some don’t believe polygamy was ever instituted by God – ever.

I’m one in this camp.

Over the years, the meaning of the “new and everlasting covenant” has changed in our church. I could certainly be wrong, but when the revelation in section 132 was given, I believe the new and everlasting covenant was understood to be polygamy. I’m pretty sure that BY and several subsequent prophets interpreted it that way too. Eventually we (as a church) were forced to abandon polygamy and the meaning of the “new and everlasting covenant” came to be known as celestial or eternal marriage.

The Ensign article gives an even broader meaning for the “new and everlasting covenant”:

Quote:

The new and everlasting covenant “is the sum total of all gospel covenants and obligations” given anciently and again restored to the earth in these latter days. This is explained in Doctrine and Covenants 66:2: “Verily I say unto you, blessed are you for receiving mine everlasting covenant, even the fulness of my gospel, sent forth unto the children of men, that they might have life and be made partakers of the glories which are to be revealed in the last days, as it was written by the prophets and apostles in days of old.”10 Because the covenant has been restored in the last dispensation of time, it is “new,” and because it spans all eternity,11 it is “everlasting.”

In the scriptures the Lord speaks of both “the” new and everlasting covenant and “a” new and everlasting covenant. For example, in Doctrine and Covenants 22:1, He refers to baptism as “a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.” In Doctrine and Covenants 132:4, He likewise refers to eternal marriage as “a new and an everlasting covenant.” When He speaks of “a” new and everlasting covenant, He is speaking of one of the many covenants encompassed by His gospel.

When the Lord speaks generally of “the” new and everlasting covenant, He is speaking of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which embraces all ordinances and covenants necessary for the salvation and exaltation of mankind. Neither baptism nor eternal marriage is “the” new and everlasting covenant; rather, they are each parts of the whole.

I believe how we interpret D&C 132 and “the new and everlasting covenant” today is much different than it was interpreted when it was originally given in 1843.

Although polygamy has been disavowed by the church as a practice since 1890, we still practice a form of polygamy today (and a sexist one at that). The Ensign article even acknowledges this:

Quote:

Notably, the Manifesto does not preclude any worthy man who has been sealed to a wife now deceased from being sealed to another, living spouse. The foregoing is consistent with the revealed doctrine that monogamy is the Lord’s standard for marriage unless He declares and authorizes otherwise through His duly appointed representative, meaning the President and prophet of the Church.

We also pracice polygamy by proxy in our temples. We routinely seal deceased husbands to 2nd or 3rd deceased spouses as polygamous marriages. We also practice polyandry (sealing of a wife to more than 1 husband) in our temples by proxy.

Polygamy is messy. I do not believe it is ordained of by God, and I certainly don’t believe it is necessary for salvation.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

As OON pointed out, it’s probably not the photo itself that caused the reaction, but the feelings about the FP that caused the reaction. I’m still curious though. Is this the photo we are talking about?

[img]https://www.mormonchannel.org/bc/content/mormon-channel/images/video/LiveEvents/640×360/first-presidencys-christmas-devo-2015.jpg[/img]

[FaithfulSkeptic]

On Own Now wrote:

DB,

You do have a historical error in your article. Let me first say that I am very opposed to the way the Church avoids clearly stating that is up to each individual. I believe that if you quiz 100 LDS members from around the world, you’ll get more than 90% to tell you that tithing is on gross. The Church doesn’t do anything to dispel that mis-belief. So, I applaud your desire to get the word out there.

But to the historical point… ‘surplus’ described in D&C 119 has very little resemblance (thankfully) to tithing today.

Historical context: The Church had attempted the Law of Consecration in “Zion” (Jackson County, Missouri). That had proven very difficult. After the expulsion from Jackson County in Nov, 1833 and a couple of years spent as refugees in Clay County, the Church was allowed to settle in the purpose-created Caldwell County. By this time, JS was also finally moving to Missouri. The Far West settlement had begun as early as 1836, but really escalated in spring, 1838, when it became the primary gathering place of the Saints – the first time one location could be considered THE center of the Church. Earlier mass migration from Clay County and now from Ohio filled the area around Far West. In July, JS received the revelation we now have as 119. He referred to ‘Zion’, this time referencing the vicinity of Far West. The revelation answered the question of how to adjust from the failed LofC but still fund the “foundation of Zion”. At the end, the revelation instructs that this implementation in Zion would be an ‘ensample’ to all the other areas of settlement (“the stakes of Zion”).

In that section, people in Zion or arriving in Zion were to give ALL – 100% – of their surplus to the Church. This was what was meant by the term “tithe” in that section. Once tithed in this way, they were then to give 10 percent of their interest annually.

This proved to be short-lived. The sudden influx of Mormons to Far West sparked hostilities. The migration from elsewhere in Missouri had occurred only the previous hear and the migration from Ohio had started in-earnest only in the spring of 1838. Sidney Rigdon gave the infamous Salt Sermon in June. The cornerstones of the FW Temple were laid July 4. The Tithing Revelation was a few days later. The Gallatin Election Day Battle was a month later… Danites… the Mormon War… the Battle of Crooked River… The Extermination Order… the Haun’s Mill Massacre… the arrest of JS and his imprisonment in Liberty Jail all came in the next three months. By February of 1839, BY was leading the Saints out of Missouri.

In short, there was tremendous financial chaos for a couple of years after the revelation.

The Nauvoo Era brought an entirely different manner of financing. As far as I can tell, but this is an area that I’m less familiar with, the Church purchased the Nauvoo land and then sold to the members at a ‘profit’ and that profit was what was used to finance the Church operations. In other words, rather than the people being ‘tithed’ again, Church income was via investment. But after two years, tithing was renewed in the Nauvoo Era; this time associated directly with the temple. People were to pay 10% of all they possessed at the time of the commencement of the Temple construction and 10% of their ‘increase’ annually until the Temple was completed. Note the new term, ‘increase’ used at this time. Also note the change from all surplus, to 10% of all possessions in the initial donation. The instructions were given by letter from the Q12 published in the Times & Seasons, Dec 15, 1841. People who had no money to give worked one day out of 10 on the Temple construction.

But the Mormon Exodus from Nauvoo threw finances into chaos again. You quoted Orson Hyde in 1847 saying that a new convert should give 10% of all his possessions when joining the Church and 10% of their increase annually thereafter, and that allowances could be made for those who had nothing extra not to be tithed at all. Remember, though, that the term ‘tithe’ in D&C 119 referred to giving all the initial surplus, not to the contribution of 10% thereafter. Also remember that those who had no money to give in Nauvoo gave of their time in lieu of funds. With that in mind, I think it is likely that what OHyde meant by “not tithed at all”, was in reference to not having any surplus at the time of joining or arriving in Zion, not to the annual payments.

Later, once the people were beginning to get a solid foothold in Utah, tithing again became an issue to be settled. In 1873, OHyde reinforced his vision that new converts should initially give 10% of all their possessions and 10% of increase annually. But that same year (two months later), Orson Pratt said that new converts should give all of their surplus at the time of joining and then 10% of increase annually. In other words, the matter was not settled.

Eventually, tithing became codified as 10% of annual income, with no initial payment. That doesn’t match the old-style, but is sort of a compromise. Can you imagine if we asked new members two give either all their surplus (D&C 119, OPratt-1873) or 10% of their net worth (Nauvoo, OHyde-1873) just to join?

Bottom line. ‘Surplus’ isn’t a word we want to use today with tithing, because to be “tithed of surplus” in D&C 119 meant to give all surplus to the Church. “Interest” or “Increase” are words used with annual requirements for tithing, but they were only used during a time when the “beginning of tithing” was to give a major slice of your net worth to the Church up front.

IMO, the best way to describe tithing today is 10% of income, and let the hearer decide what ‘income’ is. I would never say the word ‘income’ without the caveat that the Church doesn’t have a stand on whether that means gross or net, and that even the term ‘net’ is up to the individual to decide. If we get into semantics about the early laws of tithing, it is impossible to map to our world today. I’ve come to believe that the terms ‘interest’ or ‘increase’ only represent the easier part of the law of tithing from long ago and do not accurately reflect tithing of today.

Thank you for the historical context, OON. This is something I had never heard or thought about. I am struggling right now with how I should pay my tithing and all of this discussion helps.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Can anyone post the photo or a link to it?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Thanks to everyone for your comments. I feel better now. Last Sunday was just a bad day overall for me at church due to all the black/white talks I heard. This was just the one that started things off and got me worked up.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

You may wish to consult the resources listed under Joseph Smith / Emma Hale Smith on mormonspetrum.org:

http://www.mormonspectrum.org/booklist/

Some of these are from a less than faithful perspective, so keep that in mind.

JOSEPH SMITH/EMMA HALE SMITH

American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church – Alex Beam

Joseph Smith: The First Mormon – Donna Hill

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling – Richard Lyman Bushman

Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet – Dan Vogel

Joseph Smiths 1828 – 1843 Revelations – H. Michael Marquardt

Mormon Enigma – Linda King Newell & Valeen Tippetts Avery

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith – Fawn M. Brodie

Personal Writings of Joseph Smith – Dean C. Jessee

The Prophet Puzzle: Interpretive Essays on Joseph Smith – Bryan Waterman

The Words of Joseph Smith: The contemporary accounts of the Nauvoo discourses of the Prophet Joseph – Andrew F. Ehat

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Joni,

Great topic to discuss. I personally think that option 1 is what most (if not all) of the brethren believe is the Lord’s plan for gay people:

Joni wrote:

1) The gay person will be ‘cured’ of his gayness at the Resurrection, in much the same way that my husband’s hearing impairment will be fixed and he will finally hear every word I am saying.

I believe the brethren feel that SSA is a trial that some people face — a trial that many will not be able to overcome in this life. Because the Lord’s only authorized plan for families is a marriage between a man and a woman, any sexual relations outside of those bounds are sin. That is the doctrine that was reiterated by “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, given by our prophets, seers, and revelators some 20 years ago. The proclamation on the family clearly establishes the boundaries for appropriate sexual expression, as well as the covenants we make as part of the temple endowment.

To have SSA is not a sin by itself, but acting on it is. This is no different than heterosexual people: being attracted to someone other than the person you are legally and lawfully wedded to (if married) is not a sin, but acting on that attraction is. Having impure thoughts is not a sin, but dwelling on them leads to acting on those thoughts can lead to inappropriate sexual behavior, which is sin.

The doctrine of the Church is that sexual relations are only appropriate between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully married. That is the hard and fast line that has been set and any sexual relations that fall outside those bounds are sin. I think the brethren see homosexuality as an earthly trial much like the trial of a faithful single person, who longs to be married in the temple to a worthy partner of the opposite gender, but never has the opportunity in this life. In the Church, we believe that these faithful single people will have the opportunity to be married in the hereafter. I guess that’s a good argument for option 2:

Quote:

2) The gay person will remain gay, but will enter into a mixed-orientation marriage (perhaps with someone who never had the opportunity to be married during mortal life) and is therefore eligible for the highest level of exaltation.

I think the other option for gay people (from a faithful perspective) is that we simply don’t know what God’s plan is for them in the afterlife, but we trust that a loving God will make everything work out for the best.

I’m with LookingHard in my thinking that our doctrine in the Church about sexual orientation is much like our doctrine (pre-1978) about race and the priesthood. I’m hoping that further light and knowledge will be coming, but I think it will take time because it will have to change some other core doctrines of our faith.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Thanks for posting this. Loved it!

This comment to the blog post resonated with me:

Quote:

…As a thoroughly heterosexual married male Mormon, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so marginalized by the Church, but I do know that this church, however true it might be, is certainly not perfect. I also know that inspiration, even at the highest levels of the hierarchy, is sometimes very difficult to decipher. So I leave the door to infallibility wide open and recognize that God has made very few things perfectly clear in this muddled mortal sphere.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

On Own Now wrote:

I do want to point out that while Atheists and Agnostics are often mentioned in the same breath, the difference between the two is substantial. It’s not like the difference between LDS and RLDS beliefs; they aren’t simply two variants of the same concept. Atheists have a very specific, definable, and active belief. Agnostics do not. It’s always discouraging to me to hear someone associate Atheism with a person who “doesn’t believe”. Not believing is an Agnostic thing. Atheists do believe, it’s just that what they believe is different from what others believe. I don’t like terms like “skeptic” “doubt” or “non-believer” because these are all trying to define Atheism by comparison to what it is not.

Good point about the differences between Atheists and Agnostics. I’d never really thought about it this way. I consider myself to be Agnostic (at least at the moment). For me, belief is a spectrum with Belief in God on one end and Atheism on the other end. Agnostics lie somewhere in the middle.

Belief in God <

---

Agnostic

---

> Atheist

Does anyone else see this differently? I’d like to see a place in Mormonism for anyone along this spectrum. But it certainly is harder the closer you move toward the Atheist end of the spectrum.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

I don’t know how this will work either, but it makes no sense to me. It must be pretty important, however, because it seems to me that this was the rationale that Elder Christopherson gave in his clarification interview for requiring children of SSM couples to be 18 before “disavowing” the practice. The church didn’t want to put children in the position of disavowing their parents’ lifestyle at age 8, so they needed to wait until they are 18, just like the children of polygamous parents have to do.

I’m really bothered by this policy for two main reasons:

1. A member in good standing does not need to disavow the practice of SSM. Why should a child of SSM parents have to do so?

2. We don’t deny children of parents who have committed other serious sins (ie. murder, rape, birth out of wedlock, adultery, etc.) to be blessed or baptised, yet alone “disavow” their parents’ sins. Only for polygamy and SSM.

For me, this is a policy of men (or heavily influenced by legal counsel and existing policy for children of polygamists) and is not of God. I don’t think the brethren have given us the real reason for this policy and that really bothers me too.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

LookingHard wrote:

I don’t think that I have any stats to back it up, but I have heard many people say that when compared to other religions in general it is more common for LDS to move to being atheist after losing their belief in their faith tradition.

There is research to back up the assertion that many Mormons become atheist/agnostic after a loss of belief. John Dehlin did a survey in 2011 of disaffected Mormons (n=3086) and 53% of the respondents identified as atheist/agnostic. See http://www.whymormonsquestion.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Survey-Results_Understanding-Mormon-Disbelief-Mar20121.pdf for survey results and discussion.

Although this study was not a random sample of those who lose their faith (respondents were recruited on social media and several bloggernacle sites), I think there is good evidence that many Mormons do lose their faith in God when they lose their faith in the Church.

For me, (regardless of the survey) it makes sense that the more you are invested in activity and belief in the Church and then lose that faith, the more likely you are to lose belief in God as well, at least initially. That belief may change over time. I think that someone who was baptised but didn’t have a strong belief in the truth claims of the Church and then simply goes inactive shortly after is less likely to lose their belief in God, because they didn’t have as much invested in their activity and beliefs in the Church.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Bill,

Thank you for having the courage to stand up for what you believe in. You truly exemplify the way to “do what is right and let the consequence follow.” I enjoy your podcasts very much and the way that you are not afraid to point out the “messiness” of our faith, but also lead with faith.

I truly hope that you don’t suffer the same fate as others who have publicly dissented against the brethren. Your status in the church will have no influence whatsoever about how much I agree with you and admire your integrity to publicly stand up for what is right. God bless you, brother!

[FaithfulSkeptic]

To be honest, I don’t think I would have the guts to say anything in my ward. I would probably just sit there and try to ignore the discussion, or I may do what AP did if I really couldn’t take it.

Thanks for the great ideas though. I especially like mom3’s and Roy’s responses about trying to be like Jesus and the Primary songs!

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Welcome azguy! Thanks for sharing your story. You are certainly welcome and not alone here. Your wife is lucky to have you to support her during her faith transition. Many of us can identify with what you and your wife have been and are going through.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

Love this quote! This is just what I needed today. Thanks for posting, mom3!

[Author]

Posts