Whether it is scripture is a topic for another day. What I want to discuss is a couple of things I find problematic in the proclamation.

My understanding, based on the rhetoric of mainstream Mormons is that this proclamation is a response to efforts to legalize marriage equality. If that premise is true, I don’t think that those who drafted the document completely thought through how the wording would affect Mormon past.

Consider this from the first sentence:

. . . marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God . . .

Does that mean marriage between a man and more than one woman is not ordained of God? What about marriage between more than one man and one woman?

Does that mean plural marriage is unordained of God? Does it mean the current practice of sealing a man to more than wife is unordained of God?

What about this sentence from the seventh paragraph?

Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan.

Does that mean plural marriage is not essential to God’s plan?

If plural marriage is not ordained of God and is not essential to his plan, why did as a church practice it at all?

If plural marriage is ordained of God and is essential to his plan, then how does it fit into the wording of this proclamation?

I have personally found several of the articles encouraging because they cover things I never learned growing up: things I learned only as an adult and only through blogs, podcasts, and anti-Mormon websites.

I don’t know why I never learned these things. What I do know is that I never learned them in Primary, Sunday School, Aaronic Priesthood classes, Seminary, or Institute, or even on my mission. I never read them in a church magazine (although recently a handful of them have appeared in Ensign issues) or lesson manuals.

I present below several recent articles and direct quote from each showing facts and ideas I had to learn through non-official channels.

Book of Mormon Translation

• “The other instrument, which Joseph Smith discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates, was a small oval stone, or ‘seer stone.’”
• “As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure.”
• “Apparently for convenience, Joseph often translated with the single seer stone rather than the two stones bound together to form the interpreters.”
• “According to these accounts, Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.”

First Vision Accounts

• “he wrote or assigned scribes to write four different accounts of the vision.”
• “In addition to the firsthand accounts, there are also five descriptions of Joseph Smith’s vision recorded by his contemporaries.”
• “1832 account . . . He wrote that ‘the Lord’ appeared and forgave him of his sins.”
• “1835 account . . . the appearance of one divine personage who was followed shortly by another. This account also notes the appearance of angels in the vision.”

Race and the Priesthood

• “During the first two decades of the Church’s existence, a few black men were ordained to the priesthood.”
• “There is no reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime.”
• “In 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood”
• “Even after 1852, at least two black Mormons continued to hold the priesthood.”

Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham

• “Other times, his translations were not based on any known physical records.”
• “Neither the rules nor the translations in the grammar book correspond to those recognized by Egyptologists today.”
• “some Egyptologists had said that Joseph Smith’s explanations of the various elements of these facsimiles did not match their own interpretations of these drawings. ”
• “None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. ”
• “Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham”

Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints

• Everything in the section about the Danites
• Everything in the section about the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo

• “Joseph married many additional wives”
• “The oldest [of Joseph’s wives], Fanny Young, was 56 years old. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of Joseph’s close friends Heber C. and Vilate Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph [at 14 years old].”
• “Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married.”
• “Emma approved, at least for a time, of four of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Nauvoo, and she accepted all four of those wives into her household.”
• “[Emma’s] decision to ‘receive not this law’ permitted him to marry additional wives without her consent.”

The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage

• “Under exceptional circumstances, a smaller number of new plural marriages were performed in the United States between 1890 and 1904”
• “Of the 315 marriages recorded in the ledger, research indicates that 25 (7.9%) were plural marriages . . . . Of the 25 plural marriages, 18 took place in Mexico, 3 in Arizona, 2 in Utah, and 1 each in Colorado and on a boat on the Pacific Ocean.”
• The entire section on The Second Manifesto.

I see these new articles as a step in a positive direction, where the Church has begun accepting the fact researchers have known for decades. I’m happy to see the Church moving towards openness and transparency on topics for which historians were excommunicated just a few short years ago.

I am happy my children can potentially grow up in a Church where these things are taught readily.

See the rest of the story at:

http://www.calgarysun.com/entertainment/movies/2010/05/17/13981316.html

“We researched it out the wazoo,” says [executive producer Mark] Olsen, who along with executive producer Will Scheffer hired an ex-Mormon consultant to help the set and wardrobe designers re-create even the tiniest details. “We go into the endowment room and the celestial room [areas of the temple], and we present what happens in those ceremonies. Thatâ€s never been shown on television before,” says Olsen. Adds Scheffer, “But itâ€s not for shock value. Itâ€s really a very important part of the story.”

The church has issued a response to the unwelcome publicity stating basically that no official protest against the show will be forthcoming but that members are free to boycott as they see fit.

As someone that watches the show regularly, I am surprised by the move, since the show doesn’t really centre itself on mainstream beliefs and the temple ceremony can’t possibly be necessary as “a very important part of the story”—it’s quite the publicity stunt.

Previously

A couple of points are made in the letter I thought I would briefly comment on here:

Parodies of beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints occur- belief in priesthood by a man blessing his hunting rifle, belief in personal revelation from the Holy Ghost by dramatic visions that the polygamous leader discusses casually with a friend. Talk of “celestial kingdom”, “free agency”, and the “Choose the Right” slogan are included.

Other than perhaps the “Choose The Right” slogan ( I am not familiar with the context with which its usage appeared on the show), none of the above is specific to only the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Big Love. . . demeans and distorts sacred beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By setting the show in Salt Lake City, it blurs the line between the Church and the long renounced practice of polygamy.

Right. Because no other Mormon denominations or followers exist in Salt Lake City. Even so, I wish the originator of this email would explain exactly how it is demeaning and distorting. Is it because they are sexualising polygamy (implied by the earlier statement that it is a “sexually driven show”)? Seems odd then that a sacred belief (if they are indeed referring to polygamy) would be long renounced, or that a long renounced belief would be sacred. After all, I thought polygamy was a practice.

Now, where a man in this Church says, “I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,” he will perhaps be saved in the celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up. He will come forward and say, “Here is that which thou gavest me, I have not wasted it, and here is the one talent,” and he will not enjoy it, but it will be taken and given to those who have improved the talents they received, and he will find himself without any wife, and he will remain single for ever and ever.

(Journal of Discourses Vol. 16, p.166)

Is this an actual teaching of the church, that monogamous men will have their wives taken from them because they would not marry others?