thread: 2006-08-31 : I think my expectations are screwed
On 2006-08-31, Vincent wrote:
Warning: LDS-speak follows.
So my dad went back into the Journal of Discourses and spent a while reading about the Great and Abominable Church of Satan, Babylon Mother of Harlots. I forget which early prophets he read; I never was any good at early prophets, but he cared about them quite a lot.
Know what those guys, the founders of polygamy as an LDS institution, thought? They thought that monogamy was the Great and Abominable Church of Satan, Babylon Mother of Harlots. That is, the culture of monogamy, the US-at-the-time's increasingly formal rejection of polygamy as legitimate.
I guess the thinking was that if men can marry only one woman, all the other women become harlots? Like I say, I never was any good at early prophets - but lo and behold, that's what those guys seemed to think, as represented by the JoD, according to my dad. (Personally, I think they'd've said just about ANYTHING, if there were teenage brides in it for them.)
"So hold on," my dad said. "If the US constitution had defined marriage as between one man and one woman all along, the gospel could not have been restored here, at least not fully, Celestial Marriage being a significant part of the full restoration of the gospel. And now the church is spending millions and millions of dollars supporting constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Does that make ...
"... the church ...
"... the Great and Abominable Church of Satan, Babylon Mother of Harlots?"
I was like, "well dad, that's an interesting position you've worked yourself into. What are you going to do about that?"
And he was like, "I don't know! I don't know what I CAN do!"
—-
It makes me feel really fond of him to remember this. He had such good spirits about it. I think he did that kind of thing recreationally, or maybe as a discipline; he'd paint himself into impossible theological corners, relishing the challenge of researching, studying, praying his way out of them. It was one of his lifelong pastimes.
