Revisão das 22h01min de 18 de agosto de 2014

Índice

Joseph hid polygamy from the general Church membership

Perguntas

Joseph initiated the practice of polygamy and hid it from the general Church membership during his lifetime.

• Did Joseph ever attempt to teach the doctrine of plural marriage to the general Church membership?
• Why did Joseph keep it a secret?
• One critic of the Church claims, "Joseph Smith publicly lied about his practice of polygamy, and lied to his own wife (Emma) about the practice." ^[1]

Conclusão

It is true that Joseph did not always tell others about plural marriage. He did, however, make some attempt to teach the doctrine to the Saints.

Perguntas e respostas detalhadas

Question: Did Joseph Smith ever publicly attempt to teach the doctrine of plural marriage?
Answer: Yes.

A contemporary journal describes the reaction to Joseph's attempt to teach this doctrine:

When the prophet “went to his dinner,” [Joseph Lee] Robinson wrote, “as it might be expected several of the first women of the church collected at the Prophet’s house with his wife [and] said thus to the prophet Joseph O mister Smith you have done it now it will never do it is all but Blassphemy you must take back what you have said to day is it is outrageous it would ruin us as a people.” So in the afternoon session Smith again took the stand, according to Robinson, and said “Brethren and Sisters I take back what we said this morning and leave it as though there had been nothing said.”^[2]

Joseph tried to teach the doctrine, but it was rejected by many Saints, including Emma, his wife. Joseph then began to teach the doctrine privately to those who would obey.

Question: Why did Joseph keep the doctrine of plural marriage private?
Answer #1: The Saints would have suffered negative consequences.

Keeping the doctrine private was also necessary because the enemies of the Church would have used it as another justification for their assault on the Saints. Orson Hyde looked back on the Nauvoo days and indicated what the consequences of disclosure would have been:

In olden times they might have passed through the same circumstances as some of the Latter-day Saints had to in Illinois. What would it have done for us, if they had known that many of us had more than one wife when we lived in Illinois? They would have broken us up, doubtless, worse than they did.^[3]

It is thus important to realize that the public preaching of polygamy—or announcing it to the general Church membership, thereby informing the public by proxy—was simply not a feasible plan. Critics of Joseph's choice want their audience to ignore the danger to him and the Saints.

Answer #2: Secret plural marriage was legal

Another advantage to keeping plural marriage private in Nauvoo was that it meant that such relationships were not illegal under Illinois law.

Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Illegal/Illegal in Nauvoo/Was he lying Predefinição:HalesItem

Perspectivas FairMormon oferece respostas para essas perguntas

Gregory L. Smith, M.D., "Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," FairMormon Papers (2005)

Critics charge that Joseph Smith and his successors made repeated public statements in which they hid or frankly denied the practice of polygamy, despite knowledge to the contrary. It is argued that this dishonesty is morally dubious and inconsistent with the Church’s purported principles.

The concept of “civil disobedience” is essential to understanding those occasions in which Joseph Smith or other Church members were not forthright about the practice of polygamy.
Like obedience to civil law, honesty and integrity are foundational values to the Church of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the success which critics have in troubling members of the Church with tales of polygamy and its deceptive circumstances is, in a way, a compliment to the Church. If the Church as an institution typically taught its members to have a casual disregard for the truth, a discovery that Joseph Smith had deceived others about polygamy would not be troubling to most. But, because the Church (contrary to the suggestions of some critics) really does teach its members to aspire to live elevated lives of moral rectitude, the discovery that deception was involved with polygamy can come as something of a shock. Disillusionment can ensue if we follow the critics in assuming that because Joseph occasionally misled others in this specific context, he must therefore have lied about everything else, and been absolutely unworthy of trust.

But, as we have seen, the practice of polygamy must be viewed in its moral context as an act of religious devotion which the Saints were unwilling to forego simply because the state or society disapproved.

Notas

1. ↑ Predefinição:CriticalWork:Dehlin:Questions and Answers:25 June 2014
2. ↑ Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986),48; citing Robinson, Journal, 23–24.
3. ↑ Orson Hyde, "The Marriage Relations," (6 October 1854) Journal of Discourses 2:75-75.