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Many of my family members are LDS. I love them dearly! They are very kind people and I love the importance they place on family. My one cousin has 6 children and she's a WONDERFUL mother! Her children are very well behaved. I like the traditional views of marriage and family they have.
What I dislike...well, I'll just say most of the Mormon doctrine. I also dislike like that I can't attend their wedding ceremony. Every non-lds in our family is upset that we can only go to the reception. We love them and it's hard to not be able to actually see them get married.
I know that it is difficult to understand why you cannot witness the actual marriage ceremony. My mother accepted the fact that she could not witness it. But she knew how important it was to me that my marriage be performed in the temple under the right authority so that I could have the hope and promise that my marriage and family would be an eternal family. To include my mom in some of it, we decided to exchange our rings at the dinner right afterwards. I know it is difficult to understand but the temple is not a place that just anyone can enter. Not even some LDS people can enter. They have to show that they are worthy to enter and are living the Christ-like life that we all should strive for.
There still is a type of polygamy in the main Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints today. Couples are married for eternity in LDS temples, so their marriage will continue after this life. If the woman dies, the man can marry another woman for eternity also. So, in the afterlife, he will have two wives forever. However, if a man dies, the woman cannot marry another man for eternity; if she marries, it can only be for this life only. That way, men living now can have multiple wives in heaven, but women can only have one husband for eternity.
Also, although president of the LDS Church Wilford Woodruff publicly said that the practice of allowing new polygamous marriages had ended in 1890, the practice continued at least until 1904, when a second Manifesto was issued against polygamy by church president Joseph F. Smith.
"D. Michael Quinn and other Mormon historians have documented that some church apostles covertly sanctioned plural marriages after the Manifesto. This practice was especially prevalent in Mexico and Canada because of an erroneous belief that such marriages were legal in those jurisdictions. However, a significant minority were performed in Utah and other western American states and territories. The estimates of the number of post-Manifesto plural marriages performed range from scores to thousands, with the actual figure probably close to 250. Today, the LDS Church officially acknowledges that although the Manifesto "officially ceased" the practice of plural marriage in the church, "the ending of the practice after the Manifesto was ... gradual."
Rumors of post-Manifesto marriages surfaced and were examined in detail during a series of congressional hearings on whether the United States Senate should seat Mormon Apostle Reed Smoot, who was elected by the Utah legislature in 1903. The hearings began in 1904 and continued until 1907, when the Senate finally voted to seat him.
In response to the hearings, church president Joseph F. Smith issued a "Second Manifesto" in 1904 which reaffirmed the church's opposition to the creation of new plural marriages and threatened excommunication for Latter-day Saints who continued to enter into or solemnize new plural marriages."
Yes and I'm a bit familiar with it all. Gets confusing if you ask me. Were the Mormon leaders sanctioning the continuation or were some few of their leaders acting on their own? Did Mormons living in Mexico and Canada figure that the practice was only stopped because it was illegal in the USA and the law had already been upheld in the Supreme Court? Certainly there have been cases since 1890 of some continuing the practice without the official sanction of the Mormon leadership, and some cases happened even after 1904. Was the Mormon leadership less than enthusiastic in enforcing something they must have felt was forced on them by the US government? It is pretty clear that most of the practice ended beginning in 1890. I think that the really strict enforcement starting in 1904 was intended to remove all doubt, but whatever the motives, all cases of bigamy/polygamy since has led to excommunication as far as I'm able to discover.
Lots of questions can certainly be asked about the 14 years between 1890 and 1904 but the point is that the practice has not been officially sanctioned since 1890 and having multiple wives has cost any Mormon their membership for at least 100 years now. The point is that the 98% of all groups calling themselves "Mormons" -- I would cautiously call them "the real Mormon Church" because they are such an overwhelming majority -- doesn't practice polygamy and hasn't for over 100 years. Any "real Mormon" that did practice it (without risking automatic excommunication upon discovery) has been dead for a very long time now.
If you were to move to Utah and you thought you were going to meet a bunch of polygamists, you'd probably be puzzled by the fact that you never run into them. Like I said, my wife an I never met a polygamist Mormon while living there for several years and we weren't exactly massively introverted. I expect you'd have to go out of your way to find them.
You have a decent parallel with slavery. Sure it's been banned since 1863, but one might point to certain remnants of slavery. Segregation, the Klu Klux Klan, racially biased voting registration practices, ex-slaves working for completely inadequate wages at the very plantations they once worked as slaves. And there have been secret acts of slavery and human trafficking that continue to this day. Is it fair to point to these things and say, "Yeah but look at these exceptions, the USA still allows slavery!" I suppose opinions may vary there. I'm of the opinion that anyone claiming that the United States still sanctions the practice of slavery is being deliberately dishonest. I would say the same is true of anyone saying Mormons practice polygamy. In both cases, the practice is over a 100 years gone. And come to think of it, you could say that both practices did end gradually and not immediately.
How long can you continue to beat a nation/religion/ethnic group of the head for something that happened such a long time ago? And I say this because it always seems to come up when discussing Mormonism. Why is does it always come up as though it's still happening now?
One thing that occurred to me recently is there are several smaller groups that can also be considered "Mormon", although I don't know if they do or don't count as other forms of Mormonism. Such as
Community of Christ - Formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I think I saw one of their temples in Missouri during a trip. One of them, Leonard Boswell I think, is a Congressman.
The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite, but they hate that term) - Rocker Alice Cooper apparently was raised in the Bickertonites, well until age 12. They mostly seem to live in the Northeast US.
For those interested in learning about the various sects of Mormonism, there is an excellent book called, "Scattering of the Saints: Schisms within Mormonism".
And here is a wiki page with some online information on a few of the sects (a number of which have their own websites).
One thing that occurred to me recently is there are several smaller groups that can also be considered "Mormon", although I don't know if they do or don't count as other forms of Mormonism. Such as
Community of Christ - Formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I think I saw one of their temples in Missouri during a trip. One of them, Leonard Boswell I think, is a Congressman.
The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite, but they hate that term) - Rocker Alice Cooper apparently was raised in the Bickertonites, well until age 12. They mostly seem to live in the Northeast US.
Church of Christ, Temple Lot (Hedrickites) - Only a few thousand left.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) - Almost extinct by the sound of it.
For me, the simplest way to make sense of it is to recognize that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah is the "mother church," so to speak. (This is the church of which I am a member.) It currently has a membership of just over 14 million members worldwide. While its members prefer to be called "LDS" (for Latter-day Saints), they do not object to the term "Mormon." We do not consider any of these splinter groups to be factions within our church; rather we consider them to be completely distinct from us, as distinct and separate as the Lutherans, for example, are distinct from the Catholics. While Lutheranism clearly has some beliefs in common with Catholicism, it is not a faction within Catholicism but a religion separate and distinct from the church from which it split. The problem is that Lutherans call themselves Lutherans, not Catholics. Some of these Mormon splinter groups still call themselves Mormons. I don't know that there is anything that can be done to stop that practice, and I guess people have the right to call themselves by whatever name they want. It does get confusing, though.
About Alice Cooper... That's pretty interesting. I didn't know that. I bet you didn't know that Arthur "Killer" Kane, of the rock band, New York Dolls, converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a few years before he died.
For those interested in learning about the various sects of Mormonism, there is an excellent book called, "Scattering of the Saints: Schisms within Mormonism".
And here is a wiki page with some online information on a few of the sects (a number of which have their own websites).
I also was fascinated by Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.
This is a remember that all keep their posts respectful to members of the Mormon faith. If not, June will be forced to infract and close down the thread, which she would rather not do.
For me, the simplest way to make sense of it is to recognize that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah is the "mother church," so to speak.
Funny, that is not how some of these other churches see it. They see the group that followed Brigham Young as a branch that split away from the church Joseph Smith founded. And some have decent arguments to support that as the majority of the Smith family did not follow Young.
Funny, that is not how some of these other churches see it. They see the group that followed Brigham Young as a branch that split away from the church Joseph Smith founded. And some have decent arguments to support that as the majority of the Smith family did not follow Young.
Meh, I've mentioned that before but mormons never seem to realize that until after they step away from it.
But generally speaking, the "mother church" usually ends up being the largest, most influential branch of any specific movement. The SLC Utah version of Mormonism clearly is the most successful by far, and therefore should rightfully be the decider on what is and isn't "mormonism".
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