My stake president explained this to me this way so the official declarations don't even contradict revelation. "Doctrine never changes, only the way we practice it. Take polygamy for example. The doctrine is there plain as day for all to see, and is to be a 'new and everlasting covenant'. How then do we explain a revelation that makes this no longer everlasting? Like this. We believe in the eternal nature of marriage, so if your wife were to die you are still married for eternity. However, after she dies, you may take another wife and be sealed to her also. Are you not then married to two women? Is that not the essence of the doctrine? We have not ceased to practice this doctrine, we simply practice it differently because more current revelation has updated us on how to do it." Perhaps, in my opinion, the original doctrine of polygamy was put into effect with the early saints so that we would become aquainted with the practice. Had they not been introduced to it, could we now acccept the fact that we are still married after our spouse dies and are allowed to take another? It is also possible that God revealed the doctrine of polygamy but did not finish telling us how back then because the saints were not ready to hear that part, they were barely able to accept what they did recieve. Therefore, even this revelation does not contradict any revelation given before this. Nor does it contradict the standard works. It simply clarifies it.
