Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Dear LaLaLove, I think your post is “dead-center” on. Keeping a journal will help us keep things in historical perspective and allows our descendants to place things in the context of the time.
I remember being a young girl, just after my mother died. I spent a lot of time home alone at night because my father would attend church dances. I was about 12 and too old for a babysitter, but still too young to feel safe alone in a big house at night. I would read the scriptures and pray to feel safe and to feel comforted.
I wanted to know why Black men could not hold the Priesthood. I was so young and things were a little too complicated for my brain at the time. When you are that young, the Lord has a “fresh slate” upon which to imprint feelings and emotions. I received my answer.
The following is NOT doctrine, it was just my musing as a young girl:
White people are not ready to accept and be led by men of color. Until the White race humbles itself and is willing to be led by another race, they will be deprived of the blessings of being ministered to by that race. It is NOT the Black man that must be humbled, it is the White man.
I further received a witness that much of the ministry of my life would be to people of color. In the year 2004, my first grandchild, a girl was born. Her ancestors came from Africa and were slaves, she is the love of my life. Now her family and mine are forever bound, blended for time, bounded for eternity. Her grandfather is a kind, humble man and it is our privilege to both learn from him and teach him as he has never had much of an opportunity to hear the gospel. We have started family genealogy and as we find more of our relatives, truly much of the ministry I will perform in my life will be to that race of people. Some are living, some are dead, but how honored my granddaughter will be to perform their temple work and baptisms for the dead. They have also blessed our lives in ways immeasurable. I learned what it is to have faith from them.
This is just a copy and paste from the above link: “Without Martin Madan’s hymnal the revivals to follow would have been delayed. Without his teachings on polygamy, the greatest Christian composer of the 19th century would not have been born.
What may be the most amazing miracle of all is that Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Samuel’s son through Pexy, was never considered illegitimate by the church or society [miracle 10] and Samuel was recognized as being married to Pexy despite the fact that he remained legally married to Charlotte throughout his life. The hypocrisy of today’s churches is in stark contrast to the churches of that time in that fornicating ministers and musicians, even adulterers and adulteresses, are tolerated today but one who might take a wife without a license or take a second wife while still married to the first wife are cast aside as useless.
Samuel Wesley, the son of Charles Wesley, the greatest hymn writer of the 18th century, was indeed the most famous polygamist to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob since Solomon. Samuel Wesley, the most famous Christian polygamist of all time.”
http://www.christianmarriage.com/home/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=112 According to this, the Methodists were the first Christian Church to accept as legitimate, the plural wives of Samuel Wesly, the Son of Charles Wesley. These Christians believed that the covenants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be restored in modern times and may have influenced Joseph Smith as he said that he investigated the Methodist Church at one time.
“Israel is celebrating their 59th anniversary of statehood. After thousands of years of the Jewish nation being disbursed throughout the world, this tiny country was able to restore their people, culture, and Hebrew language in less than a decade. I visited Israel during their 50th anniversary in 1998. The city of Jerusalem was full of festivities and fireworks and the sun reflected off the limestone buildings making them look like gold.”
The preceding was copy and pasted from:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/247390/israels_independence_day_on_may_14.html?cat=9 Yes, there was and is a literal gathering of Israel, both in the Holy Land and here in the U.S.
Dear Ray, I didn’t mean to convey “multiple messages”. My ancestors were polygamous. My great-grandfather had two wives, my great-grandmother and her sister. He loved both of them dearly. Because they didn’t practice, “traditional marriage” they were constantly persecuted. Having walked across the plains and settling in Utah, they were driven out once more and had to leave the United States and settle in Mexico. They could never return to their home country until after my great-grandfather was dead. He was no criminal. He and his family were the kindest, most Christlike people you could ever meet. Members of my family have served multiple missions – one uncle have served 5 missions and raised 10 children.
This is what I was speaking about when I said, “being like Christ” His posterity has served in Africa, Australia, Bolivia and poverty stricken areas of the deep South. They have gone without food, clean water, suffered food poisoning, hepatitis etc. Yet they are NOT like other Christians because they are the literal descendants of families who practiced plural marriage.
Polygamy was never “in fashion” in the United States. Now some members have joined groups to promote “Traditional Marriage”. These groups detest plural marriage forgetting that Christ was a literal descendant of a family that had practiced plural marriage for thousands of years.
And it does hurt me when members forget this and embrace the “politics de jor” and the trendy new version of the “traditional family” and the theology behind it.
Every single branch and sect that broke away from the early Church over polygamy failed – miserably. Most died out with one generation. The Lord commanded polygamy to “build up a generation that would serve him”. This law applies both anciently and in modern times.
There is a saying, “Some Mormons want to be like other Christians, other Mormons want to be like Christ”.
There will be a split in the Church, there already is. Part of the Church will embrace the modern Christian Conservative movement. This movement denounces the BOM and polygamy, accepts only the Bible and “Traditional Marriage”. The LDS Church has already formed coalitions with these other Christian groups and a partial “merger” has occurred. Thus, Mormons are becoming more like Conservative Southern Baptists and Evangelicals as a demographic.
Other members of the LDS Church want to become more like Christ, not like other Christians. This path will lead us further away or separate us from our current Christian Coalition Partners. There will be few true Christians in the Latterdays, so few as to render them politically irrelevant.
The Church will absolutely, definitely split into distinctive groups. You can see that this is already happening. One part of the Church will join the broader Christian Coalition of the far right and accept Evangelical doctrine, the other part of the Church will remain separate from the coalition, but able to retain Mormon doctrine and teachings.
Dear Indecision, Depression does make people want to withdraw from social activities. Sometime we just wish we were turtles and could hide in a shell. I know how you feel because I used to have grand mal seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy (I have since recovered). I didn’t like large crowds of noisy people, especially the loud music, bright lights and dancing at LDS Socials, so I skip those.
I prepare a nice meal, clean the house and invite a few close friends over to my home. Sunday is a great day to invite friends over. Now, if your health is too poor to go to all that work and fix a big feast, I suggest a “pot luck”. Ask everyone to bring just one simple dish and help you clean up afterwards. If you live in Salt Lake, you can come to our dinners.
We have friends who are diabetic or dieting so we always prepare one diabetic menu.
Zacharias, husband of Elizabeth was a Priest and Temple Worker. One day, (if I remember it correctly), an angel appeared to him and foretold that his elderly wife, Elizabeth would conceive and bare a child. I can’t blame Zacharias from having a bit of doubt. Elizabeth had been barren her whole life, never a child in her womb. The years had passed. Zacharias was stuck dumb by the angel as a sign. He returned home to his wife, unable to speak. Some few months later, Elizabeth’s 14 year old, unmarried cousin announced that she was with child. This was simply not acceptable in the Hebrew community, so this pregnant teen had to be “put away privately”. Elizabeth agreed to care for her even though she herself was pregnant.
When the young mother-to-be arrived, Elizabeth pronounced a blessing on both the mother and child as her husband Zacharias was unable to speak. Elizabeth was the very first person to give a blessing to Christ. She knew Him before He was even born.
At the time that polygamy was practiced, women suffered from severe poverty and social inequality if they were widowed. There was no Social Security. Banks had failed. The Civil War was looming.
The plight of widows and orphans was usually poverty to the point of starvation and death. Thousands of men were going to be killed in the impending civil war. The government was broke from fighting the civil war. The South was devastated.
The early Latterday Saints escaped the civil war by heading westward to Utah in 1847, Utah was not a State at that time. Widowed women and children were taken in by “husbands” who bore legal, spiritual and financial responsibility for them. The social status of women who said, Brigham Young is my husband, was much better than women who had no husbands.
Back then, orphans were sold as slaves, Widowed women were often forced into prostitution or were slaves because they couldn’t pay their debts. My great, great grandmothers survived because of the protection afforded by polygamy. These large families became the “social welfare system” of the civil war and post civil war era. Infant mortality was greatly reduced, starvation due to poverty was eliminated. Prostitution was gone. Crime was down. Orphaned children were able to spend their days in the classroom instead of working as servants.
I, for one, am grateful for Polygamy.
I will be very honest with all of you. I understand exactly why George feels the way he does. I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Right now, we DO have a problem. There is a small, yet growing number of groups that want to do certain things. It started out with little things like not allowing women to use a public golf course. Inspired by Tiger Woods, some young black women wanted to use a public golf course and were told “absolutely not”. A group of LDS women from Utah joined a cheering campaign called, “Hooray for Hootie”, Hootie being Hootie Johnson, the man who would not let women on the golf course. To add insult to injury, these same LDS women then published a campaign on the internet saying it was ok to rape one’s wife to whom one is separated. Most battered women who are murdered by their abusers are killed shortly AFTER leaving the marriage. This period of separation is considered the most dangerous time for battered women. These women need protection. I know it sounds like I’m on that old soap-box and this post will most likely not even be posted – I fully expect it to be deleted, but at some point in time we must all face the reality of where we are in terms of social justice, both in and out of the church.
Unpleasant topic, I admit.
I have very much wanted to remain active in my faith, but I have noticed that some members have begun to slide in areas of equality and social justice. I would have thought that the gospel of Jesus Christ would have been the ultimate model for social justice and equality, but politics has seemed to overshadow the core gospel. If I could change one aspect of being a cultural Mormon, it would be to help members of my faith embrace social justice and equality. So far, I have failed completely.
Dear Friends, I am a fifth generation Mormon whose ancestors knew JS. I can’t quite understand what specifically generates concern about early church history as my ancestors were so very impressed with the Prophet JS, and claimed that many newspaper reports written to defame him were actually just political opponents and others generating propaganda. My ancestors would write the actual facts in journals and I would realize that JS was a much different type of person than what his enemies wrote about.
The BOM is actually a very short, concise abridgment of an ancient record. Oral histories and other written histories of the Americas are much more complete. I enjoy how they complement my knowledge of the BOM.
Dear ???, I most certainly do NOT want to try and diagnose you over the internet, but I do want you to have some information.
Between the years of 1938 and 1971, around 10 million pregnant women were given the very powerful synthetic estrogen known as DES. This would not apply to you if you were born after 1971 or 1972. We are now seeing both men and women who have what is known as “Gender Dysphorias” or gender identity issues and same-sex attraction. It is believed that the human brain is biologically programmed to develop as a male or female by what is called “Androgen Imprinting” in the womb. The Androgens are sex steroid hormones such as Testosterone and Dihyrotestosterone. Not to worry. Persons with gender dysphorias are sons and daughters of God and dearly loved by Him. Treatment should be directed toward self-awareness, development of personal identity and interpersonal relationships etc. Gender orientation and sexual attraction usually do not change, even with therapy. The goal should be self-acceptance and learning to care for yourself and love yourself exactly the way you are, taking “ownership” of your body and focusing on physical, mental and spiritual health.
There are also several other conditions which I have seen clinically. Many are genetic, some are the result of Thyroid disease of the mother during pregnancy, methamphetamine abuse of the mother whilst she was pregnant and environmental exposure to estrogens. Good luck and God Bless.
Dear Wendell, You didn’t mention if your wife or children worked. The Church has this notion that men are to be the breadwinners and that women are totally responsible for keeping a clean home and caring for children. I think that marriage should be about sharing responsibilities. Most wives work outside of the home (or do in-home businesses) to supplement their families incomes. This gives Dads more time at home with the children and allows fathers to learn more homemaking skills such as cooking and laundry.
Good luck and God bless.
