harmony wrote:This kind of duplicity is a cancer, and if it is revealed that he has really been doing this on a monthly basis for three years, I don't know how Americans can continue to trust Evangelical leaders. You'd be forever wondering what they were really up to.
Can we really blame the anti-Mormons and ex-Mormons who say the same charge can be leveled at Joseph Smith? He lied from the pulpit and in the press, repeated denied having more than one wife, even while at the same time, he was married to dozens of women. How could anyone trust him after that? (and remember, the church says Fanny was his first plural wife, and that was 1831. So everything he did after that is suspect, because he was hiding his sins?)
None of the witnesses supported him in this. Oliver Cowdery spoke his mind and lost his membership in the church partly because of this. David Whitmer in his Address To All Believers in Christ considered Joseph a fallen prophet. In fact, polygamy led to Joseph Smith's death. I can't think of any doctrine more divisive in Mormon history than polygamy, and it was in fact the church leaders' lies about polygamy, detailed in D. Michael Quinn's Dialogue article in 1985 that sent me inactive for three months. Polygamy and the lies surrounding it, and any lies, have always been a serious source of disturbance. Look at how many people were affected by Paul Dunn (I wasn't, because I never thought much of his stories in the first place, and didn't put him on a pedestal). I said that Haggard's good work was in helping the poor and his opposition to racism. He no doubt did good work. I think the record of the LDS church presidents throughout the last century doesn't even come close to what Haggard is now accused of, and if an LDS church president did something like this there would be mass apostasy, that's my guess. They are still "only" leading 12 million people, and more than half have already left the church. Haggard was the leader of 30 million Evangelicals, and an influence on George Bush and US politics in general. I see few comparisons.
In regard to "everything being suspect", I certainly suspect polygamy came from Joseph's mind, not God, and I long ago lost my faith in church leaders as "infallible guides" or even "fallible guides", and ceased putting any trust in them in that regard. I do my own thinking and don't believe what they say necessarily comes from God. From my point of view everything should be questioned.
I don't blame anti or exMormons for losing faith, at all. What I have blamed some for is the way they have attacked the church incessantly, and some even seeking its destruction, or wanting it to fall, or getting revenge on the church, and the constant bickering and pettiness. If I was an Evangelical I wouldn't even want to show hatred to Mr. Haggard. I would just walk away and have nothing more to do with him or the movement, because he is going to have enough trouble just getting his life back on track. But what he did, if the accusations prove true, should be a frequently repeated lesson to others, just like how Baker and Swaggart are. This may be one time too many for most to handle.
PS: If Fanny was where Joseph first transgressed, in 1831 (but I believe it was in fact 1833 at the earliest), indeed all of the revelations after that could be suspect.