With news headlines flying about the raid on the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), the question has arisen of how anyone could believe in polygamy, in any form.
Most of you who have read my past blogs know that I am a Mormon. I am aware of the beliefs of sects who have broken off from the original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints concerning polygamy, but I do not understand the mentality so I will only seek to justify my own.
The original LDS church (of which I am a member) believes that the three greatest sins are, in order:
-Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (meaning that after you have seen Christ, you deny his divinity)
-Murder (the intentional shedding of innocent blood)
-Adultery (any kind of sexual relations outside marriage)
We also believe that marriage (not in plural form) is required to obtain the highest degree of heaven. So you can see that sexual relations are taken very seriously.
Now if God commanded you to kill someone, to fulfill a righteous purpose, would you do it? If you truly believe God told you to and wanted you to kill that person, I'm assuming that you would.
For us, the belief that polygamy is acceptable stems from the same understanding: If God commands, we obey. We (meaning Mormons) do not practice polygamy today. We have not practiced it in a century and anyone who performed a secondary/etc. marriage since 1904 has been communicated. When I say that I believe in polygamy (as a principle), what I mean is that I believe that I am willing to accept whatever God commands... but if it doesn't make sense you can bet I'm going to make absolutely positively certain of the source of the commandment before I act: the same in plural marraige as if I were commanded to kill the wicked leader of a nation.
I am not condoning present-day polygamy. My personal feeling is that anyone practicing polygamy today is acting contrary to the will of God. Nor to I condone underage marriage or sexual abuse in any form. Religion, especially, is a horrible excuse for abuse.
If I, personally, were married and asked to give consent for my husband to marry a second wife (consent was/would be required), what would I do and how would I feel about it? Honestly, I don't know. I beleive we should simply be open to God's will, and temper our thoughts with common sense.
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I agree. What Jeffs did perverted the religion. I think something is going to happen. I think they have abused the welfare system. How could they afforad the places they had? They dont pay workers for their company and underbid people who do
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