What do you feel or know about Brigham Young's Polygamy?
BY was on FIRE w/polygamy!
1) 50+ wives, 50+ children (not very prodigious)
2) BY taught "Adam-God Doctrine," that Adam was God the Father and Eve was one of his plural wives. He taught that for every plural wife a man has, she will be the literal Eve of that earth and the man the literal Adam. The church dropped his teaching after his death and they removed the hymn he had commissioned about the doctrine. There's a quote by Spencer W. Kimball in the 1970s asking members to stop teaching that Adam-God (BY) doctrine.
3) BY taught that the only way to the 3rd degree of the celestial kingdom was for polygamists -- where eternal creation happens.
4) BY made statements that polygamy would never be taken from the earth, etc.
check out missedinsunday.com/category/memes/polygamy/ for some sad/funny church leader quotes (some not so long ago)
We should see polygamy from the standpoint of the victims (members should not try and justify the perps). It is so uncomfortable a topic and such a black eye for the church, that members often relegate to reductionist comments like, "We'll never truly understand why it happened" (ignoring the victims and the uncomfortable truths).
Was polygamy a practice or a commandment in OT times?
Has it been the practice of kings and Sultans over time to have harem? Did King David and King Solomon have harems?
Does an ancient practice 3-5k years ago of polygamy or the practice of kings and sultans, make the custom right in modern times?
Has society until recently, been misogynistic toward women / how much voice and say have women had, or even in the mid-1800s in isolated Utah?
What period of the OT was polygamy practiced? Was it practiced during NT times? What did anyone in the NT say about polygamy?
If polygamy was never to be taken from the earth as BY and JT said, why did God change his mind in 1890? Did the 3 anti-bigamy Acts passed by Congress, the last being in 1897 which gave the federal gvt rights to seize church assets, have anything to do with polygamy's end? (read WW's please in his Declaration). Or, was it circumstantially necessary to stop the practice?
Did polygamy and cohabitation end (as the law required in 1890?
Was JFS, when he was president of the church in the 1910s, get charged by the federal gvt w/bigamy (cohabitation), and how much of a fine did he pay?
Are you familiar with the 2nd and 3rd Manifestos and the dates those were released? (only the 1st is in D and C, which leads the reader to believe it all ended in 1890).
Are you familiar with the meeting JT had in the 1880s with 3 men in a home in Centerville, where by his own handwriting (the church history office has confirmed its his handwriting, as have graphologists), he bestowed the rights of the N&EC and polygamy to 3 men to continue? Are you familiar with those 3 men's legacy and the FLDS and UAB et al branches?
Are the wrongs of prophet Warren Jeffs, FLDS, in any way connected to polygamy by way of legacy? Would FLDS/UAB et al be practicing polygamy, had Joseph and Brigham not started it? Is there no culpability or legacy effect?
Can we see polygamy through the lens of the victims? (vs justifying past leaders).
Why was it only the top 5% of the church population that practiced polygamy, and why was it mainly the church leaders who had that "privilege?"
In Victorian 1840s, was it considered socially proper for a 37-year old man to have 35-38 wives, with some of them being 14 and 15?
Why was Emma Joseph's 13th (not 1st) sealed wife? What did Emma say about how she "Caught Joseph and Fanny in the act in the barn" (Kirtland).
If Joseph claimed an angel of the Lord would have struck him with a sword if he didn't practice polygamy, why did he have 35-28 wives (was he wholly a hesitant participant)?
Why did Joseph publicly preach against polygamy (T&S, RS Affidavit, etc.), yet privately practice it?
How many of the 12 apostles in Nauvoo were practicing polygamy?
Were apostles the missionaries of their day, and would it be normal that converted-members from England, etc. would follow their apostle-missionary?
How much of polygamy did the rank-file members know about polygamy in Nauvoo?
Why was polygamy not announced to the church membership until 1852 by BY in the tabernacle? (when he then produced the 1842 "revelation" that WC penned)
shawnmatheson