Lying Polygamy says the Prophet will never lead you astray

My wife and I had a flash of insight come to us yesterday evening as we were driving to our Bradley Method prenatal class (to supplement our pending midwife-assisted home birth).

I was reading to her from B. Carmon Hardy's Solemn Covenant : The Mormon Polygamous Passage.  He has an essay at the end called "Lying for the Lord."

Randal Shortridge <rds@acsu.buffalo.edu> sent this essay to the David's Outcasts e-mail group yesterday, to supplement the discussion taking place there regarding the abomination of lying.

History will attest that polygamy created a mass of blatant liars (for the sake of religion) out of the early Mormon pioneers.  It started as a lie when Joseph and others denied it publicly while practicing it privately.  Then, after its open practice was outlawed, the select saints who were entrusted to continue the practice were required to lie about it.  Probably the greatest ironies of lying came after polygamy was officially denounced by the Church in the 1890 manifesto, along with the assurance from Wilford Woodruff that "the prophet will never lead the people astray."

Charles W. Penrose, in a letter to John Taylor in 1887, expressed his concern that "the endless subterfuges and prevarications which our present condition impose . . . threaten to make our rising generation a race of deceivers." (p. 368 Solemn Covenant.)

Somehow the early saints justified in their mind that it was okay to be deceptive publicly about their private practice of polygamy.  Indeed, the two seemed to go hand-in-hand : Polygamy and lying.  (And a case could be made that for the most part this lying also carried into the marriage relationships as well, in which fidelity to more than one at  time is given the best face possibly while the reality is so far from that.)

The point that hit Cheri and I yesterday is what an irony this presents as to the context for Declaration 1 now canonized in the LDS scriptures, which declaration is the 1890 Manifesto officially terminating the practice of polygamy, along with the introduction of the consolatory statement (also now canonized in LDS dogma), "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray.  It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty."

The practice was indeed continued even by the highest leaders of the church, with the full knowledge of the president of the Church.

So if he was lying about discontinuing polygamy, what about the statement that he would never lead the people astray?

Modern defenders and promoters of polygamy point to 1890 as the juncture in which the Church departed from the Lord by abandoning this supposedly most exalted practice. They point to the fact that the oracles of God, taking the form of "thus saith the Lord" ceased in 1890.  From that point forward, no more was a president of the church to receive oracles directly from the Lord, in his words, to the church.

While they point to the cessation of polygamy as the cause for this termination of oracles, I would argue that the cessation came because that was when the prophet set himself as infallible to the people -- a position which the Lord could not endorse by continued oracles.

When the prophet said, "trust me, I will not lead you astray," the Lord stopped trusting him with his oracles.

You see, it is only when a man stands as a humble messenger of God that God can speak through him.  When he sets himself as being worthy of trust, thereby removing the focus foremost from God, he then ceases to function as a messenger.  He becomes the message, and this is idolatry.

And what was the message of the day?  Deception : Solemnly declaring one thing when the intention was to do another, and proclaiming oneself to be trustworthy.

That is why the oracles ceased.  It wasn't because they gave up polygamy.  They didn't give up polygamy -- at least not yet.

What they did was continue its practice, persecuting anyone who got caught so that it would appear to the world that they were sincere in their declaration that the practice was no longer endorsed.

This dichotomy of words and actions drove a wedge of distrust into the hearts of the most valiant saints.  Only those willing to set their consciences aside for the sake of loyalty to the church were able to continue in kind fellowship.

Those with the strongest consciences were sacrificed as scapegoats.

Is this the way for a people of God to behave?

Oh for a day when we can know as we are known, when each can be responsible for his own salvation before God, not trusting in another man because he says it is safe to do so.

Sincerely,

 

Sterling D. Allan; Manti, Utah; September 28, 1999

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