Trib article about the church's recent changes of it's polygamy cartoons for Primary children.

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I thought the same, but then thought maybe it's like the "funnies" cartoons we, or me, use to read every Sunday. It's portrayed similarly. 

Yes, and I think that is the point of calling them cartoons as part of the trivialization effort. As is "polygamy" instead of "plural marriage" as used in the Church site.

The funnies and comics (cartoons) are laid out very differently than the format and art style for "Doctrine and Covenants [Illustrated] Stories [for Simplified Learning]". In a modern sense, "cartoon" is a humorous drawing.

"Classics Illustrated" (or graphic novels) might be a better comparison, and while it is called a comic book, the illustrations are not considered cartoons and much of the narrative is captioned as opposed to speech balloons/bubbles. The Doctrine and Covenants Stories" format doesn't even use speech bubbles.

Qualified journalists know this; what they do with it is something else!

[Kenngo1969]

3 hours ago, Senator said:

The act of rape can produce progeny. Does that mean we should de-catagorise rape as a wrong?

 I think you made a logical error.

I am not the one who made the logical error!  (Hint: Look in the mirror.)  And I find your comparison between rape and plural marriage reprehensible, Sir.  Surely, there have been, are, and will continue to be disagreements between us, but, notwithstanding those disagreements, I had thought better of you.  Perhaps I should rethink that assessment.

[Raingirl]

2 hours ago, Injeun said:

All the criticisms against the Church come from a corrupt and hell bound world. First off, polygamy came from God. Second, there is nothing intrinsically evil about it. The evil of polygamy resides in the heart of the accuser. American society condones, endorses, and promotes same sex marriage, deviancy, promiscuity, rampant immorality and astronomical numbers of out of wedlock births. So on what righteousness does it stand to condemn polygamy? The evil that society sees in polygamy which is endorsed by God is in the heart of society. God isn't our accuser. He is our advocate. We needn't be ashamed or wear the guilt of a dirty minded world. Let the world wear its own shame and guilt. In the end, God will marry every man, woman, and child in the Church to himself. What has the world to say of that? If God knows us like a husband his wife, and we him by his knowledge of us, then let the world rage against the rock. The world has absolutely nothing to offer us in the way of righteousness but that which it owes to God, which is a broken heart and contrite spirit. Even the bible based religion which parades as Christianity as if it were united in Christ when it is divided among tens of thousands of different disciplines, has no foundation in God. It is broken up and empty.

Not everyone in the church believes that polygamy came from God.  There’s actually a compelling reason to believe that it was created by man.  Without it, there is no workaround for eternal marriage for widowers.  They would be doomed to a life without sex.  Can’t have that, can we?

[Kenngo1969]

2 minutes ago, Raingirl said:

Not everyone in the church believes that polygamy came from God.  ...

Fair enough, but anyone who believes that must contend with the fact that actual, real, live, flesh-and-blood human beings resulted from it.

[Senator]

8 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I am not the one who made the logical error!  (Hint: Look in the mirror.)  And I find your comparison between rape and plural marriage reprehensible, Sir.  Surely, there have been, are, and will continue to be disagreements between us, but, notwithstanding those disagreements, I had thought better of you.  Perhaps I should rethink that assessment.

What the …. 😳

[MustardSeed]

18 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

And I find your comparison between rape and plural marriage reprehensible, Sir

Respectfully it appears he wasn’t likening the morality or badness of rape and polygamy.  I can see why it would be an easy diversion but: Senator fwiw I see what you’re saying. 

[Injeun]

22 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Well you lost me at hello.  My mind does not operate in such black and white terms, and there are plenty of missteps along the way that would not be as controversial as polygamy.  

Never mind polygamy, the accusations against Joseph Smith and the Church began immediately after his first vision when he was but a boy, accumulating every step of the way to this very day. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

1 hour ago, Raingirl said:

Not everyone in the church believes that polygamy came from God.  There’s actually a compelling reason to believe that it was created by man.  Without it, there is no workaround for eternal marriage for widowers.  They would be doomed to a life without sex.  Can’t have that, can we?

So what else from Doctrine and Covenants 132 should we toss out?

If it wasn't from God the RLDS were right this entire time and I would have to double-back again and endure their endless arguments, divisions, and lack of any significant progress. I would also have to accept as fact that we, with our dead, have been rejected and the Restoration ended at the death of Hyrum and Joseph.

No, there really is no alternative. Either the Church is true with it's stalwart pioneer "polygamists" doing what the Lord instructed or it's not. If this isn't the true Church, there is nothing else out there and I should just join some of the participants here in their rejection of God and any real significant purpose to life.

That I refuse to do.

[Injeun]

54 minutes ago, Raingirl said:

Not everyone in the church believes that polygamy came from God.  There’s actually a compelling reason to believe that it was created by man.  Without it, there is no workaround for eternal marriage for widowers.  They would be doomed to a life without sex.  Can’t have that, can we?

So? That would be to reason that the Church isn't true. There are former missionaries who are now Atheists who say the Church is a death cult and there is no God. The fact remains that polygamy isn't any more immoral than monogamy. And our nations collective morality is in the gutter.

[MustardSeed]

38 minutes ago, Injeun said:

That would be to reason that the Church isn't true

I don’t agree with that at all.  

[Injeun]

53 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I don’t agree with that at all.  

It would also mean you get to pick and choose which doctrines are true. If that's the case, then it would you or me or whoever that would be the man behind the doctrine. It is apostasy. Either a thing is of God or it isn't.

[Injeun]

2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

So what else from Doctrine and Covenants 132 should we toss out?

If it wasn't from God the RLDS were right this entire time and I would have to double-back again and endure their endless arguments, divisions, and lack of any significant progress. I would also have to accept as fact that we, with our dead, have been rejected and the Restoration ended at the death of Hyrum and Joseph.

No, there really is no alternative. Either the Church is true with it's stalwart pioneer "polygamists" doing what the Lord instructed or it's not. If this isn't the true Church, there is nothing else out there and I should just join some of the participants here in their rejection of God and any real significant purpose to life.

That I refuse to do.

I was converted to the Church long after the Prophets death. Gods spirit came to me and awakened me to a remembrance of him, to know that he lives, and showed me in a vision that the LDS Missionaries are his servants. So I knew, sight unseen, that the Church is his true Church.

[InCognitus]

4 hours ago, CV75 said:

Yes, and I think that is the point of calling them cartoons as part of the trivialization effort. As is "polygamy" instead of "plural marriage" as used in the Church site.

The funnies and comics (cartoons) are laid out very differently than the format and art style for "Doctrine and Covenants [Illustrated] Stories [for Simplified Learning]". In a modern sense, "cartoon" is a humorous drawing.

"Classics Illustrated" (or graphic novels) might be a better comparison, and while it is called a comic book, the illustrations are not considered cartoons and much of the narrative is captioned as opposed to speech balloons/bubbles. The Doctrine and Covenants Stories" format doesn't even use speech bubbles.

Qualified journalists know this; what they do with it is something else!

Since we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year I have made it a point to listen to the Saints series during my daily walks.  I started listening to it in late January and I haven't been able to stop, and I'm already half way through Saints Volume 3.  It is easy listening (and easy reading when I'm back at home), easy to follow, and they provide good sources when looking them up online later.   And since I moved to Utah from Arizona two years ago, this series has also helped me get better acquainted with Utah history, which I consider to be important for my experience in the state.

But relevant to your post above and the topic of this thread, I was immensely interested the development of publications that emerged in Utah in the latter half of the 19th century.  

In Saints Volume 2, Chapter 24, it discusses the business ventures of a Latter-day Saint editor named Elias Harrison who published articles in the Utah Magazine, a periodical that had the financial backing of his friend William Godbe, one of the wealthiest merchants in the Church.  In his Utah Magazine article, Elias had criticized two missionaries (two sons of Joseph Smith) that came to Salt Lake from the Reorganized Church, and they were preaching against the idea that Joseph Smith ever practiced plural marriage, and Elias accused the two missionaries of being "singularly ignorant" of their father's work.  

But Elias apparently had another agenda in his publishing.  Even though he often defended the Church in his writing, he also opposed Brigham Young's policies on the merchant cooperative movement in Utah.  Both Elias and William lost some of their control over the local market due to the cooperative movement, and so they began to use the Utah Magazine to prepare other like-minded people to stage a revolt within the Church.   

Quoting from Saints Volume 2, Chapter 24:

Quote

Their desire to revolt had taken shape one year earlier on a business trip to New York. At that time, both men had begun trying to communicate with the dead through Spiritualist séances. Spiritualism had become popular in the aftermath of the American Civil War as people yearned to communicate with loved ones who had perished in the conflict. Church leaders had long condemned such practices, however, as counterfeit revelations from the adversary.

Ignoring these warnings, William and Elias immersed themselves in séances and came to believe that they had spoken with the spirits of Joseph Smith, Heber Kimball, the apostles Peter, James, and John, and even the Savior. Convinced these communications were real, William and Elias felt called on a special mission to rid the Church of everything they considered to be false. When they returned to Utah, they began to publish subtle criticisms of Church leaders and policies alongside more positive columns in the Utah Magazine.

Soon after publishing his column on the Smith brothers, Elias grew more aggressive in his attacks on Brigham Young and Church policies. He argued that the cooperation movement robbed the Saints of the competitive drive necessary to stimulate Utah’s economy, which he thought was too weak to sustain itself on local manufacturing. He also reasoned that the Saints were too selfish to sacrifice their own interests for the good of the community.

To try to make a long story shorter, it soon became clear that Elias Harrison and William Godbe were conspiring against the Church and its leadership, and they were excommunicated.  

In 1870, William Godbe and Elias Harrison organized their followers into the "Church of Zion" and formed a new movement to reform the church and the priesthood.  "They also began a newspaper, the Mormon Tribune, and aligned with merchants in the city to form the 'Liberal Party' to combat the Saints’ political dominance in the territory." (Saints, Volume 2, Chapter 25).

But how this story played out was an eye opener to me, here's a quote from the next chapter:

Quote

That spring, however, Amasa Lyman announced his decision to join the Church of Zion, immediately sparking rumors that he would lead it. Amasa had been released from the Quorum of the Twelve in 1867 for apostasy, and few people were surprised when he embraced the New Movement. Yet his oldest son, Francis Lyman, was speechless when he learned of his father’s decision. He tried to reason with Amasa but soon was too heartsick to argue. He fled the room and wept for hours...

[skipping down a bit on the page]

Over the last year, Amasa Lyman had been preaching for the Church of Zion and attending séances at which Spiritualist mediums claimed to speak for Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Chief Walkara, and other Saints who had died. People reported hearing rapping noises or seeing a table levitate during the meetings.

While these séances drew some Saints to the New Movement, most were wary of them, and the Church of Zion soon floundered. By the time Brigham returned to Salt Lake City in February 1871, the New Movement was less a religious organization than it was a group of people with a shared goal of ending the Church’s influence in the area.

In April, the leaders of the New Movement changed the name of their newspaper from the Mormon Tribune to the Salt Lake Tribune. Then, in July, they dedicated the Liberal Institute, a spacious meetinghouse in which they could deliver sermons, hold séances, and stage lectures and Liberal Party political meetings. The New Movement had also succeeded in drawing away Brigham’s former friends T. B. H. and Fanny Stenhouse, who had been on the cusp of leaving the Church for several months.  (Saints, Volume 2, Chapter 26)

When I learned of this history for the origin of the Salt Lake Tribune, I came home from my walk and said to my wife, "THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING".  lol

I knew the paper was slanted, but I had no idea of their origins.

But I also wanted to put in a plug here to anyone who has doubts about plural marriage and how it was practiced.  I highly encourage everyone (who hasn't read it already) to read Saints Volume 2, and especially the first few chapters of Saints Volume 3, especially the parts that cover the time leading up to the Manifesto and the post Manifesto period. 

Women reaching adulthood during the post Manifesto period of time were concerned over their futures, as they no longer had the guarantee of financial support that marriage brought women at that period of time.  So plural marriage had its positive side as well as negative side.

It's an interesting period of history, and we shouldn't judge the people of that time according to our modern perspective.  It's really not fair to any of them.

Edited February 23, 2025 by InCognitus

[sunstoned]

18 hours ago, Dario_M said:

That's more your opinion. For other people polygamy can work out great. Polygamy is also not my thing. But i don't think people who are practise it are doing something wrong perse. Allthough i know that the church is against it and people will get excommunicated for it. If someone from my ward would tell me that he/she practise pologamy i wouldn't distance myself from that person. Who am i to judge? 

It is the opinion of Professor Richard Busman, Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University and a noted author.  His work is well-researched and author.  what you and others might call polygamy, most people call adultery. 

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, CV75 said:

I would say remaining strong requires a focus on the Savior https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1993/10/strength-in-the-savior?lang=eng, not PR work (which is only a very incidental component of sharing the gospel).

 

This is nice, but shifting focus and ignoring this issue does not resolve anything.  Unless the church steps up and addresses issues about polygamy and Joseph Smiths actions, many will continue to be frustrated and leave the church.

[sunstoned]

12 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Except that it wasn't a mistake, it accomplished the exact purpose for which the key was turned opening the practice to the Church. The fruit of plural marriage was a generation of righteous men and women who conquered the mountains and built, on the foundation, the structure that has grown to spread throughout the world, that is now building Houses of the Lord at an unprecedented rate for the redemption of our dead- the greatest work of this dispensation.

How have our plural marriage denying cousins done? What is their fruit? They reject Temple work and they are continually mired in division and contention (RLDS) or they have the utter inability to grow beyond 10,000-15,000 people. (Hedrickites and Bickertonites).

It was never hidden- did Doctrine and Covenants 132 disappear from our scriptures? How about OD1? Did fundamentalist groups randomly pop up 20 years ago? Was "Mormon Doctrine" never written? 

Members disinterest in studying previous to stumbling on to anti-Mormon literature can not be placed at the feet of the Church.

That is not correct.  Read the early journals.  The fruit of plural marriage is a legacy of hardship.  Today, dozens of splinter groups continue Joseph Smith's legacy.  Their actions have been documented in social media.  Today, polygamy is strongly associated with the church, and it is not a positive assocation.

[CV75]

5 hours ago, Raingirl said:

Not everyone in the church believes that polygamy came from God.  There’s actually a compelling reason to believe that it was created by man.  Without it, there is no workaround for eternal marriage for widowers.  They would be doomed to a life without sex.  Can’t have that, can we?

Sure, not everyone in the Church believes that plural marriage was restored by God through Joseph Smith. What do you think is the difference between a Church member who expresses this belief in disparaging ways and represents the Church’s simplified representation of the practice in “D&C Stories” as a cartoon about polygamy, and one who shares compelling reasons for not believing in it, in good-faith and promoting unity in the Church?

[Tacenda]

6 hours ago, Ragerunner said:

Focusing on the original post.

It appears the cartoon originally provided more detailed info on polygamy. Then it was changed to be more generic in its statement.

So, some feel that the original was too much info for a children’s cartoon, while others feel the updated, less detailed changes are hiding too much?

Sounds like dang if you do and dang if you don’t?

Am I miss understanding?

Polygamy is a significant part of Church history. I would prefer the Church be as open as possible with Church history.

Thank you, I should have been more detailed. I just wish it wasn't in anything for the children. But that's just me. 

[CV75]

34 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

This is nice, but shifting focus and ignoring this issue does not resolve anything.  Unless the church steps up and addresses issues about polygamy and Joseph Smiths actions, many will continue to be frustrated and leave the church.

This is a good way to shift focus and ignore the issue: you want to talk about the Church remaining strong vis-a-vis polygamy, and I am addressing it in ways you sidestep and ignore. The strength of the Church is in Christ, and PR on a dozen or more topics you might try to make hay of is hardly relevant -- it doesn't determine how many join or leave. For example, what is the relationship between your faith in Christ, your participation in the Church, and your focus on polygamy?

When you insist on focusing on Church PR as the means for her to "remain strong," at least provide the actual PR material.

I do think the Church responsibly incorporates quality historical scholarship in her teachings while relying on Christ for remaining strong. Others may think differently about timing and strategy, but that is a function of their bias, and they use rationale to make it seem reasonable to others they are trying to sway.

 

Edited February 24, 2025 by CV75

[Tacenda]

6 hours ago, CV75 said:

Yes, and I think that is the point of calling them cartoons as part of the trivialization effort. As is "polygamy" instead of "plural marriage" as used in the Church site.

The funnies and comics (cartoons) are laid out very differently than the format and art style for "Doctrine and Covenants [Illustrated] Stories [for Simplified Learning]". In a modern sense, "cartoon" is a humorous drawing.

"Classics Illustrated" (or graphic novels) might be a better comparison, and while it is called a comic book, the illustrations are not considered cartoons and much of the narrative is captioned as opposed to speech balloons/bubbles. The Doctrine and Covenants Stories" format doesn't even use speech bubbles.

Qualified journalists know this; what they do with it is something else!

Well, when I posted the opening statement I did feel funny calling it a cartoon and couldn't think of another word or phrase for it. So said it like the article's heading.

[ZealouslyStriving]

42 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

That is not correct.  Read the early journals.  The fruit of plural marriage is a legacy of hardship.  Today, dozens of splinter groups continue Joseph Smith's legacy.  Their actions have been documented in social media.  Today, polygamy is strongly associated with the church, and it is not a positive assocation.

Are you saying that the children of plural marriages did not build the structure that has permitted the Church to grow and prosper in a way unparalleled in the annuals of religion?

Because it was difficult and required sacrifice, it wasn't of God and was a mistake? Why? Because God never asks His people to pass through fiery trials?

So... because some among the Fundamentalists do wrong, we should lie and say it was not commanded of God and a mistake? Seems like a bit of an overreaction. Should we outlaw marriage altogether because some men have performed badly in the duties as husbands?

The Church continues to baptize at a good click, and baptism have began to grow again in the last couple of years in spite of easily accessible information. No, I think critics want the Church to admit it "made a mistake" because they perceive it as some type of victory in their crusade against the Restored Gospel. They would just move to another topic. The attacks won't cease as long as the Church claims exclusivity as the Lord's true Church.

Edited February 24, 2025 by ZealouslyStriving

[sunstoned]

9 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Are you saying that the children of plural marriages did not build the structure that has permitted the Church to grow and prosper in a way unparalleled in the annuals of religion?

Because it was difficult and required sacrifice, it wasn't of God and was a mistake? Why? Because God never asks His people to pass through fiery trials?

So... because some among the Fundamentalists do wrong, we should lie and say it was not commanded of God and a mistake? Seems like a bit of an overreaction. Should we outlaw marriage altogether because some men have performed badly in the duties as husbands?

The Church continues to baptize at a good click, and baptism have began to grow again in the last couple of years in spite of easily accessible information. No, I think critics want the Church to admit it "made a mistake" because they perceive it as some type of victory in their crusade against the Restored Gospel. They would just move to another topic. The attacks won't cease as long as the Church claims exclusivity as the Lord's true Church.

I really don't have a dog in this fight.  The fallout from Smith's and other leaders' polygamy continues to this day.  And it is anything but positive.

[Raingirl]

6 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Fair enough, but anyone who believes that must contend with the fact that actual, real, live, flesh-and-blood human beings resulted from it.

I didn’t say anything about the children that were born out of polygamy, least of all anything negative.

Children are born in all kinds of situations, including harmful ones.  That is not the fault of said children, and does not make them less in any way. 

[Raingirl]

5 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

So what else from Doctrine and Covenants 132 should we toss out?

If it wasn't from God the RLDS were right this entire time and I would have to double-back again and endure their endless arguments, divisions, and lack of any significant progress. I would also have to accept as fact that we, with our dead, have been rejected and the Restoration ended at the death of Hyrum and Joseph.

No, there really is no alternative. Either the Church is true with it's stalwart pioneer "polygamists" doing what the Lord instructed or it's not. If this isn't the true Church, there is nothing else out there and I should just join some of the participants here in their rejection of God and any real significant purpose to life.

That I refuse to do.

What a strange way of thinking. 

[Calm]

On 2/23/2025 at 7:36 AM, Senator said:

The act of rape can produce progeny. Does that mean we should de-catagorise rape as a wrong?

 I think you made a logical error.

It is the type of progeny, a faithful people that plural marriage is said to have produced.  Not just any children. (I know Senator was addressing the phrasing that implied the point of plural marriage was children and not what was probably the intended point…a faithful progeny, which alleged point I am engaging with)

While the Church does appear to have that core of faithful families if one just looks at the leaders, who is to say this core wouldn’t have happened anyway given the way church leadership structure is set up.  They could be faithful families because of having leaders in the Church often from their ranks with the hardships created by high demands of leadership pushing them to be more dependent on each other rather than because those leaders practiced plural marriage.  

It would be interesting to research reasons why.  Not sure how to do it because circumstances were rather unique.  Look at various religious communities that were isolated through persecution and/or location perhaps.  I would look at least at the percentage of offspring over the years that stayed in the Church or came back to it as well as levels of activity over the years by location, by marriage type, by size of family compare monogamous to polygamous as well as other new religion movements, especially if there are any that had similar growth in the early years prepolygamy).  As far as I am aware the LDS community is one of the largest of new movements from that time era if one looks at individual churches, but our church structure may be what contributes to that.  The African Methodist Episcopal Church has 2.5 million members and started in Philly in 1816 (got that info from Google).  Not a great analogy as while it had the element of isolation being a minority church, lacking in unique doctrines so not really a new religious movement, I believe.  

Seventh Day Adventists at 22 million would probably be better to track, see how many original families still have members, how was growth and commitment over the years achieved.  Maybe the option of being stricter sooner on the Word of Wisdom could have created some of the same isolation effect along with other unusual beliefs.

Jehovah Witnesses would probably be another useful comparison, separating themselves in some ways with their view of oaths and some unusual beliefs.

I haven’t studied the early years or much else of those faiths, so hard to know if they are close enough to make a useful comparison between the presence of plural marriage and the lack of it in a religious faith to see what effects a heritage of plural marriage had.

A flow chart of where the husbands and wives in plural marriage came from to see if they originated from faithful families more (or if it was often an economic decision as Kathryn Flake found many immigrant women without family support chose to be plurally married faster than the other immigrant women chose to be monogamously married) would be useful.  Comparing siblings who were plurally married with those who weren’t, did they stay active in the Church and what percentage of their children stay active.  Post manifesto…did families with closer ties to plural marriage stay active in the Church or did more leave.  Where did the fundamentalists come from, active plural family heritage or not?

I would not be surprised if the survival of the Church was helped by the strong persecution for religious beliefs and the isolation it created (the sense of only being able to depend on or even be accepted by other church members).  Rauch’s discussion of the benefit of being an exilic faith made me think of plural marriage and I wonder if our other more unusual, even sometimes unique Christian beliefs would have been enough to keep us intact and growing over the years if we lacked that which made us most offensive to others, plural marriage.  My question would be if growth and commitment might have been as well achieved by focusing on another more unique aspect of our community without having to deal with the negative effects of plural marriage, including the fundamentalist break off sects and the dislike of us by others (which I assume is primarily an artifact of the hate from our plural marriage days as well as the priesthood ban, but I could be wrong).

Edited February 26, 2025 by Calm