Temple crisis

[Sunday21]

@DoctorLemon I work with a lot of people from the Middle East, they blame polygamy for Islamic extremism because so many young men lack a father figure. Sometimes they have money from dad but no dad.

[cdowis]

Getting back to the OP topic, the problem will soon get worse with the new policy of placing names submitted over two years ago into the general temple pool.  Fight now I suppose there are many thousands of names which are being held by the members that will now be released into the general temple population.

I am a senior citizen, and have trouble walking and standing so I use a walker.  I feel the temple could encourage the brethren with such handicaps by letting them know that the temple will make special accommodations for them.  I don't go now because I just don't know how that will work o me == do I have to use a wheelchair, even though I can use a walker?

[Sunday21]

4 hours ago, cdowis said:

Getting back to the OP topic, the problem will soon get worse with the new policy of placing names submitted over two years ago into the general temple pool.  Fight now I suppose there are many thousands of names which are being held by the members that will now be released into the general temple population.

I am a senior citizen, and have trouble walking and standing so I use a walker.  I feel the temple could encourage the brethren with such handicaps by letting them know that the temple will make special accommodations for them.  I don't go now because I just don't know how that will work o me == do I have to use a wheelchair, even though I can use a walker?

Just call the temple, not on a Saturday though! If there is a session scheduled, there are people in the office. If you have a weekday morning session early in the week, this is a good time to call. Explain the situation. They will be happy to help!

[zil]

7 hours ago, cdowis said:

I am a senior citizen, and have trouble walking and standing so I use a walker.  I feel the temple could encourage the brethren with such handicaps by letting them know that the temple will make special accommodations for them.  I don't go now because I just don't know how that will work o me == do I have to use a wheelchair, even though I can use a walker?

I have seen a woman with a braced leg & crutches, for whom they brought in a chair and towels to support her leg at the right height.  The last time I went, a woman was in the room before the rest of us arrived, and only stood (with difficulty) long enough to put on her robe (she did not stand all the other times the rest of us stood).  A male relative is confined to a wheelchair, he never stands, he has a shorter robe especially to avoid it dragging on the ground, and he puts on his temple whites before leaving home.

In all the cases I have witnessed, temple workers aided the person who needed it.  I am absolutely certain they would accommodate your needs.  Have courage and go, we need you!

[Guest MormonGator]

17 hours ago, yjacket said:

  My apologies for the threadjack :-(.

 I for one, having never hijacked a thread before in my entire time here, demand that you personally apologize to every single one of us by writing a 15 page letter and taking us out to dinner. 

[The Folk Prophet]

20 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I would be mildly surprised to see the Church re-authorize polygamy; because frankly I think we failed at it the first time around.  Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Joseph F. Smith, and (I think, but could be wrong) Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow, all had polygamous relationships that failed.  I have several dysfunctional instances of polygamy in my own family tree; and so does Just_A_Girl.

I know we're supposed to be back on topic and all...but that's like saying we're failing at marriage because there are divorces. I think that is WAY too broad a generalized conclusion. And even if generalizing that way, in order for it to be accurate it would need to be shown (or at least believed) that at least a majority of marriages were failing before it would be accurate to apply the universal "we're" to the matter.

Certainly in many cases there are situations where divorce occurs, one of the people in the marriage did not actually fail, finds another, marries faithfully and continues on "successfully" in marriage. And the fact that the prophets you list above married many women for many reasons and then some of those women did not remain dedicated to the marriage does not prove that they (the prophets) failed. It might be that in some cases they did (no one is perfect), but it might be something else. I would hope that we don't look at all the divorces we know and automatically assume that the individuals therein are always "failures" at marriage. They may be. But reasonably speaking, sometimes good people get a raw deal because others use their agency.

Bottom line, the fact that a polygamous marriage here and there went awry does not translate to "we failed at it the first time around".

20 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

As a church I think we have a long ways to go before we can equal the strength and devotion of our pioneer ancestors--let alone, exceed them.  

I find this attitude a bit cynical (that's probably the wrong word...struggling to come up with the right one...so I'll just expound).

I would dare bet that percentage-wise, the church membership would surprise us all if and when something momentous enough came along to try us in the way that the pioneers were tried. I do not think it's a fair comparison. Johnny fell of his horse and Stevie didn't. Johnny got back up and kept riding. Therefore I conclude that Johnny has more strength and devotion than Stevie? How do you know?

Moreover, the idea seems to skip over all the apostasy in the early church -- all the way to the top including members of the twelve and first presidency! That certainly isn't happening in our day. By that one could just as reasonably conclude that we have more strength and devotion than our ancestors. But that wouldn't be a valid conclusion either.

What I do believe, however, is that if we were called to convert our Prius's to handcarts, cross the frozen Utah lake in the middle of winter, and have half our children die as we marched back to Independence... most of the active members that I know would be right there marching beside you and me. And the less dedicated who decided to ignore the call...well there were plenty who did that every time the Saints moved locations in the early church too.

[eddified]

24 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

 I for one, having never hijacked a thread before in my entire time here, demand that you personally apologize to every single one of us by writing a 15 page letter and taking us out to dinner. 

I'll settle for just the dinner. 

[Guest MormonGator]

5 minutes ago, eddified said:

I'll settle for just the dinner. 

Hey pal, now YOU can write everyone a 15 page letter. 

[eddified]

Just now, MormonGator said:

Hey pal, now YOU can write everyone a 15 page letter. 

Oh goody, I've been upgraded to a "pal"!!

Can the letter be just this one sentence repeated 1500 times? "I will exhibit tough love at all times like MormonGator"

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, eddified said:

Oh goody, I've been upgraded to a "pal"!!

Keep this up and you might get a cool kids club application. Not promising anything.

[Just_A_Guy]

@The Folk Prophet your second point is a good one, and I hope you are right.

Re your first point - I concede I have drawn my opinions on anecdotal experience; but oh! What anecdotes some of them are!  

--In my family history, a husband visited a wife who had just given birth earlier that day, demanding she get up out of bed and fix him dinner.  She got out of bed--and came at him with a cast iron frying pan, ultimately restrained (momentarily) only by her ten year old child.  Husband ran out the door and never returned. 

--A third-great grandmother, by then a young widow, emigrated to Utah via train with her two young children.  A kindly stranger gave her a ride from the station to her final destination, during which there was a loud and awkward encounter with the stranger's wife, who assumed her husband had married again behind her back.

--Not a family story, but one I read about in a Utah County local history:  in American Fork, one winter's evening the youngest of three polygamous wives wanted to go to some local event (a dance or quilting bee; I don't remember exactly what).  The older two wives wanted her to stay and help with the chores.  She went anyway.  When she got home that night she found that the other two wives had barred the door shut.  She froze to death, right there on her own doorstep, as her sister-wives listened unmoved to her cries for help.

Granted, these are extreme examples.  And FWIW, I'm not saying that the stigma or suspicions of culpability that often (rightly or wrongly) are imputed to "failed" monogamous marriages, should be applied to "failed" polygamous ones--polygamy is a whole other ballpark of potential marital challenges.  That said:  it clearly is harder to make polygamous relationships work; as evidenced by disparity in divorce rates of monogamous prophets versus polygamous prophets of (we can safely assume) similar personal qualities.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[The Folk Prophet]

@Just_A_Guy 

Re: 
Example 1: Not relevant to polygamy. Husbands are jerks the world over.

Example 2: Relative, but not indicative of "failure". 

Example 3: Not relevant to polygamy. It could have just as easily been brothers and sisters that did such to a sibling.
 

40 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

@The Folk Prophet That said:  it clearly is harder to make polygamous relationships work; as evidenced by disparity in divorce rates of monogamous prophets versus polygamous prophets of (we can safely assume) similar personal qualities.

Agreed. It is clearly harder. Which also means that when judging the failure/success rate as compared to an easier system, that difficulty level should be considered in said judgment, yes?

Edited March 25, 2017 by The Folk Prophet

[SilentOne]

4 hours ago, MormonGator said:

 I for one, having never hijacked a thread before in my entire time here, demand that you personally apologize to every single one of us by writing a 15 page letter and taking us out to dinner. 

 

3 hours ago, eddified said:

I'll settle for just the dinner. 

3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Hey pal, now YOU can write everyone a 15 page letter. 

3 hours ago, eddified said:

Can the letter be just this one sentence repeated 1500 times? "I will exhibit tough love at all times like MormonGator"

My letter must be completely personal. Everybody else can have the same text, maybe even the same sentence repeated over and over, with just the salutation personalized. Just remember to make sure you copy @zil's over with a fountain pen.

As for the dinner, are we talking a big banquet or private one-on-one dinners? If a banquet, will transportation costs be covered?

 

 

[zil]

2 minutes ago, SilentOne said:

Just remember to make sure you copy @zil's over with a fountain pen.

And don't think I won't know the difference!  Maybe something in KWZI Thief's Red or Diamine Matador Red, on Rhodia (Tomoe River if you don't have Rhodia), so I can decide whether to get a sample for myself.

[Just_A_Guy]

2 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

@Just_A_Guy 

Re: 
Example 1: Not relevant to polygamy. Husbands are jerks the world over.

Example 2: Relative, but not indicative of "failure". 

Example 3: Not relevant to polygamy. It could have just as easily been brothers and sisters that did such to a sibling.
 

Agreed. It is clearly harder. Which also means that when judging the failure/success rate as compared to an easier system, that difficulty level should be considered in said judgment, yes?

Yes; the relative difficulties of the systems involved was the point I was (poorly) trying to make.  Assuming that there was indeed a failure of some sort; I think such a "failure" is less a harsh judgment against our pioneer forbears and more a testament to just how hard a trial they were asked to endure.

As to the examples cited:  certainly individuals are capable of churlish behavior in any relationship; but polygamy--carelessly lived--can exacerbate feelings of jealousy, selfishness, secrecy, mistrust, and so on.  Would my ancestor have treated one wife so cavalierly if he hadn't had three other wives to give him comfort?  Would those two women in American Fork been more merciful to a woman who was not a rival for their husband's affections?

Even its apologists (I'm thinking of a tract written, IIRC, by Zina Diantha Young) conceded that functional polygamous relationships were more or less devoid of the "romance" traditionally associated with monogamous marriage.  It's a hard doctrine to live correctly and potentially disastrous when done wrong; and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that a critical mass of the Church membership demonstrated that they were not prepared to live it as it should be lived.  Again--that's less a condemnation of them; then a reminder of the depth of their trials.

[Vort]

13 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

[Plural marriaage is] a hard doctrine to live correctly and potentially disastrous when done wrong; and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that a critical mass of the Church membership demonstrated that they were not prepared to live it as it should be lived.  Again--that's less a condemnation of them; then a reminder of the depth of their trials.

Very nicely put. Those are exactly my sentiments.

[The Folk Prophet]

2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that a critical mass of the Church membership demonstrated that they were not prepared to live it as it should be lived. 

It is a stretch to take a few anecdotes and call a system "failed" based on them. A big stretch.

[Guest MormonGator]

4 hours ago, SilentOne said:

 

My letter must be completely personal. Everybody else can have the same text, maybe even the same sentence repeated over and over, with just the salutation personalized. Just remember to make sure you copy @zil's over with a fountain pen.

As for the dinner, are we talking a big banquet or private one-on-one dinners? If a banquet, will transportation costs be covered?

 

 

Yjacket better take out a third mortgage with the way this is going...

Edited March 25, 2017 by MormonGator

[Just_A_Guy]

41 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

It is a stretch to take a few anecdotes and call a system "failed" based on them. A big stretch.

To be clear, I'm not saying the "system" of plural marriage failed; any more than I would say that the "system" of the United Order; or the "system" of Zion's construction/redemption in Jackson County, Missouri; or the "system" of an economically independent State of Deseret; or Joseph Smith's apparent "system" of a color-blind priesthood; "failed".  

Rather, as a church--in spite of monumental sacrifices made by our people--we simply did not live up to the potential of those divine injunctions; and a merciful God removed them from us, to be re-instituted at a future day when as a people we have been further refined and sifted.

If we as a Church are prepared for our destiny, no power on earth or Hell can keep us from it.  If we aren't, then to a certain extent we go into the wilderness.  Co-operative efforts fall to speculation and panic; mobsters drive the Saints from Zion; anti-Mormons infest Salt Lake; internal and external pressures necessitate a priesthood ban--and federal governments become an existential threat to the Church.  The story of Zion in every age is one of divinely inspired prophets trying to guide the Lord's people to promised lands--both temporal and spiritual-- in spite of themselves.

But, coming back to polygamy and whether or not we are spiritually equal to our pioneer forbears:  at least in this regard, given the prevalence of promiscuity and pornography; I think as a people we are further from--not closer to--being able to live that doctrine now, than we were in 1890.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[The Folk Prophet]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

To be clear, I'm not saying the "system" of plural marriage failed; any more than I would say that the "system" of the United Order; or the "system" of Zion's construction/redemption in Jackson County, Missouri; or the "system" of an economically independent State of Deseret; "failed".  

Rather, as a church--in spite of monumental sacrifices made by our people--we simply did not live up to the potential of those divine injunctions; and a merciful God removed them from us, to be re-instituted at a future day when as a people we have been further refined and sifted.

This is a good point. To be fair, you did say: "I would be mildly surprised to see the Church re-authorize polygamy; because frankly I think we failed at it the first time around."  But I think the the point you make here above is certainly valid. And, I also think that living the "system" of the United Order would be decidedly more difficult in our day than it was when the settlers were establishing a new community in the middle of nowhere. I've wondered before how this could ever possibly work within our modern world. Perhaps it would be simply a matter of doing like the Amish (and somewhat like the FLDS), and discard all modern conveniences.

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

But, coming back to polygamy and whether or not we are spiritually equal to our pioneer forbears:  at least in this regard, given the prevalence of promiscuity and pornography; I think as a people we are further from--not closer to--being able to live that doctrine now, than we were in 1890.

Once more, I don't know that I agree with this. I think that culturally we are probably further from accepting it (thanks to the Cinema, among other things, that have concreted the romantic happily-ever-after, romantic-love-is-the-end-all view into our worldview). I'm just not convinced that it's a spiritual matter. I could accept that there may be a greater divide between those who are spiritually strong and those who have been corrupted by the the enticements of the modern world. But that divide has, in my opinion, strengthened those who have avoided or abandoned (repented of) those things.

Of course this is all guesswork on both our parts. And the only reason I keep going on about it is because I do think there is a trend to criticize the members of the church and I, perhaps, have my guard up a bit on the concept. It is undeniable that there are problems and weaknesses. But it seems like the focus is sometimes all on the weaknesses and never on the strengths. I have seen amazing strength, sacrifice, commitment, and loyalty in my fellow members. I think we sell them short when we miss this. Moreover, I think we do ourselves a disservice when we look at the church members from a negative viewpoint. (I don't mean you were doing that. Just explaining where I'm coming from in jumping to a defensive position.)

Edited March 26, 2017 by The Folk Prophet

[Just_A_Guy]

Excellent points, to be sure.

I am intrigued by what you say about popular conceptions of romantic love--I don't have time to gather my thoughts here; but I suspect we might agree that society's obsession with it has actually led to less happiness and fulfillment and stability; at least over the past half-century or so.  I recently read (well, listened to) Chernow's biography of Washington; and Chernow is consistently bemoaning the lack of "romance" in the Washingtons' marriage even though it is apparent through their correspondence that they enjoyed a deep friendship, fundamentally respected each other's abilities, and were faithful to and devoted to each other.  It strikes me as an ideal marriage, but apparently for Chernow it was the wrong kind of love; and he seems at times genuinely mystified as to how Washington could possibly have found such a "passionless" relationship fulfilling.

Edited March 26, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[askandanswer]

On 3/24/2017 at 10:23 AM, zil said:

In Fictionville, absolutely.  In Realityburg, I don't want to touch this discussion with a 10-foot pole.

so have you thought about moving?

[zil]

Just now, askandanswer said:

so have you thought about moving?

Out of Fictionville?  Not on your life.  It's the best place ever.  Realityburg is seriously messed up.  Not sure why anyone would want to live there.

[Guest MormonGator]

5 minutes ago, zil said:

Out of Fictionville?  Not on your life.  It's the best place ever. 

Amen to that. In Fictionville I'm the legendary bass player for my own metal band. We lack mainstream success but have a cult following. @mirkwood weeps with jealousy. 

Edited March 26, 2017 by MormonGator

[askandanswer]

3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Amen to that. In Fictionville I'm the legendary bass player for my own metal band. 

Sounds like a good reason for everyone else to move out.