Jason Bourne wrote:
Well your question and PPs is valid and tough.
Some days I wonder why I do or if I do or if I want to.
I think he started out well, that he was caught up in the restorationist movement.
I really love the Book of Mormon and its teachings.
There is much in the D&C that I value and love as scripture as well.
My whole life has been as a Mormon, and my whole spiritual journey.
My family, my kids, my wife my best friends are all LDS. It is partly cultural but it is more
As for faith there is much I find compelling in the teachings of Joseph. The eternal nature of intelligence and spirits, the idea that God has created many worlds with humans, and others.
I think he made a big mistake and I wish he could have lived because I wonder if he would have abandoned it. There is indication that he was planning on doing away with it and this is the testimony of William Marks,
So, there are some quick reasons.
If I recall Ray you think polygamy was a mistake do you not?
Very good explanation, Jason. Of course I knew this would be your answer. Some are baffled why you would continue to hold Joseph Smith in honour, instead of abandoning everything.
The Book of Mormon does not teach polygamy. In fact, Jacob 2, although allowing for it, specifically denounces it except for "raising up seed". I'm at odds with polygamy, and I find D&C 132 to be the least inspiring section of the D&C. Like the three witnesses, I think it may have been a mistake, and most of the Church's problems arose because of this, in my opinion. Some of the early Church members never accepted polygamy either, but this doesn't negate what is inspired and revealed. I have never had a "witness" that polygamy is "true", either, but that doesn't lead me to abandon the Book of Mormon. Jacob 2 outlines what can happen in polygamy:
35 Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.
There is potential for abuse in polygamy, and Mormon polygamy is by no means an exception in world history. Many have practiced it. According to Wiki:
Polygamy worldwide
According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, of the 1231 societies noted, 186 were monogamous. 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and 4 had polyandry.
Consider Emma's Last Testimony:
Emma, in an April 1867 interview with a Reorganite elder, Jason W. Briggs, would not even admit to a personal knowledge of her husband's revelation on "celestial marriage" (Shook 1914, 185-86). Her sons, shying away from what must have been a very sensitive subject, apparently never asked her about their father's involvement in polygamy, despite the urgings of many to "ask your mother, she knows." In 1879, however, Joseph and Alexander "decided to present to her a few prominent questions, which were penned and agreed upon." Emma responded to the questions as follows: "Q. What about the revelation on polygamy? Did Joseph Smith have anything like it? What of spiritual wifery? A. There was no revelation on either polygamy, or spiritual wives. There were some rumors or something of the sort, of which I asked my husband. He assured me that all there was to it was that, in a chat about plural wives, he had said, "Well, such a system might possibly be, if everybody was agreed to it, and would behave as they should; but they would not; and besides, it was contrary to the will of heaven." No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband's death, that I have now, or ever had, any knowledge of. Q. Did he not have other wives than yourself? A. He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have. Q. Did he not hold marital relation with women other than yourself? A. He did not have improper relations with any woman that ever came to my knowledge. Q. Was there nothing about spiritual wives that you recollect? A. At one time my husband came to me and asked me if I had heard certain rumors about spiritual marriages, or anything of the kind; and assured me that if I had, that they were without foundation; that there was no such doctrine, and should never be with his knowledge, or consent. I know that he had no other wife or wives than myself, in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise" ("Last Testimony," 289-90).
Here is another interesting excerpt from Van Wagoner's
Mormon Polygamy: A History:
Some have admitted that Joseph Smith became involved in polygamy but later tried to disentangle himself from the practice. Brigham Young conceded in 1866 that "Joseph was worn out with it, but as to his denying any such thing I never knew that he denied the doctrine of polygamy. Some have said that he did, but I do not believe he ever did" (Unpublished Address). But Smith's niece, Mary Bailey, writing in 1908 said that her uncle finally "awoke to a realization of the whole miserable affair [and] … tried to withdraw from and put down the Evil into which he had fallen" (Newell and Avery 1984, 179). Prominent early leaders of the RLDS church also shared this viewpoint. Isaac Sheen, who became affiliated with the RLDS movement in 1859 and edited the church periodical Saints' Herald, wrote in the first issue of that paper (March 1860) that though "Joseph Smith taught the spiritual-wife doctrine," he "repented of his connection with this doctrine, and said it was of the devil." Former Nauvoo stake president William Marks, a close friend of Emma, wrote in a July 1853 letter to the Zion's Harbinger and Baneemy's Organ that he met with the prophet a short time before his death. "We are a ruined people," Marks quoted Smith; "this doctrine of polygamy, or Spiritual-wife System, that has been taught and practiced among us, will prove our destruction and overthrow. I have been deceived … it is wrong; it is a curse to mankind, and we shall have to leave the United States soon, unless it can be put down, and its practice stopped in the Church." Marks said that Smith ordered him "to go into the high council, and I will have charges preferred against all who practice this doctrine; and I want you to try them by the laws of the Church, and cut them off, if they will not repent, and cease the practice of this doctrine … I will go into the stand and preach against it with all my might, and in this way, we may rid the Church of this damnable heresy." But Smith was killed shortly after this conversation, and when Marks related what Smith had said, his testimony "was pronounced false by the Twelve and disbelieved."
I think, unfortunately, the bold portion of the above has happened to some extent. The practice has stopped, and if it didn't, I do think that would have destroyed the Church.