Prescription versus description

Everything in the Bible is true. That is a basic belief of the Christian faith. But just because something is recorded in Scripture does not make it a command or doctrine. Unbelievers make all sorts of claims of what the Bible approves of, but most of their examples are descriptive in nature.

It is something I have been dealing with on Mormon Coffee and Pastor Michael Jones was talking about it in relation to mistakes critics of the Bible make (at least I think that is what he was saying, it was hot in the fellowship hall and I was stuffed with fried chicken, so I was a little groggy), that is mistaking Biblical description for Biblical prescription.

Mormonism is a great example of people doing this. Mormons baptize people for the dead. Why? Because of an obscure descriptive reference in 1 Corinthians: Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? (1 Corinthians 15:29) Does that say to baptize the dead? No, it describes something the church in Corinth was doing, a church with a myriad of false doctrines running rampant. Paul mentions it in passing and millions of people practice it is a commandment.

A better example is polygamy. Mormons formerly practiced and still believe in polygamy. The doctrine is still in their Scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants 132 (D&C 132)

The "revelation" that Joseph Smith received after getting caught with multiple wives starts off as follows:

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—

2 Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.

3 Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.

4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

5 For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.

6 And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

7 And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.

Notice that when Smith begins his defense of his polygamy, he refers back to the many wives of Old Testament prophets. Smith's logic is: Abraham was a prophet. I am a prophet. Abraham had lots of wives. I can have lots of wives. That is the story. When you ask a typical mormon about polygamy, they will at first brush it off "we don't do that anymore". If you get deeper and keep pressing, it is that "Well Old Testament prophets had plural marriages" While it is true that some OT prophets had multiple wives, it is also true that they were never commanded to do so. In fact they typically were in rebellion against God when they did so and it had negative consequences for them. Abraham, after being told to do so by his wife (an important lesson for husbands everywhere), took his wife's handmaiden Haggar and impregnated her, believing wrongly that God was not keeping His covenant to give Abraham a son.The results are disastrous. Sarah becomes jealous of Haggar's son Ishmael and Haggar is catty toward Sarah because she was able to provide the son that Sarah apparently couldn't. This leads to conflict that results in Haggar and Ishmael being cast out of the camp, where Ishmael would have died of dehydration if God hadn't intervened. That story is hardly a ringing endorsement of polygamy, but mormons still cite Abraham as a defense of Joseph Smith and his polygamous ways.

After Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, the Bible records Lot committing incest with his two daughters. Based on mormon logic, that means that if current mormon prophet Thomas Monson announced that incest was a new and everlasting covenant, it would have the same standing. You might say that is silly, but that is exactly the kind of thing that comes from misreading the Bible. The Bible is not a Bartlett's Quotations, it is a uniform and complete story that is meant to be read as a whole. Reading verses out of context and outside of the total Biblical witness invariably leads to false doctrine being taught.

More on the FLDS debacle

The state of Texas finally released the children of the FLDS cult last week in what can charitably be described as a disaster. Texas governor Rick Perry has warned them to consider getting out of Texas...

DALLAS (AP) -- Gov. Rick Perry hinted Thursday that members of a polygamist sect whose children were recently returned amid a botched sex-abuse investigation should pack their bags, a newspaper reported.

Perry, who was in La Baule, France, for a European business conference, said that the state of Texas has an obligation to protect young women from being forced into marriage and underage sex, The Dallas Morning News reported in its online edition.

He also warned members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that child sex abuse won't be tolerated and even suggested that followers of the renegade Mormon sect may want to get out.

"If you are going to conduct yourself that way, we are going to prosecute you," Perry said. "If you don't want to be prosecuted for those activities, then maybe Texas is not the place you need to consider calling home."

Very smooth, we come in and take your children without legal backing and now in the wake of that incident we tell you to get out of our state or we might come take your kids again. Very nice.
I cannot imagine what this has been like for the parents of those children, to have the government swoop in and seize your children based on accusations leveled anonymously against another individual. Despite the fact that they are odd and heretics, and that what they are accused of may very well be happening, there was no legal basis for it and the government just doesn't get to come into our homes and take our children because of vague suspicions.

The other big issue here is that because of the ham fisted actions of the state officials, in the event another real complaint comes up, they will have a much harder time taking action in the future, which is probably why Governor Perry issued his "warning".

The net result here is that these children were taken from their parents without justification, which will be used by the cult as an example of the evils of the outside world and increase their hold over these people; the state of Texas lost an enormous amount of credibility; they have made it harder for real complaints to be dealt with; families were put through an enormous amount of heartache absolutely without cause or justification.

This whole event also gave rise to another occasion for papers to erroneously assert that the mainstream mormon church renounced polygamy a century ago, when it reality it remains a valid doctrine of Mormonism, the practice of which has been suspended currently. The whole sordid affair is yet another example of our government overstepping it's bounds, especially where parents and children are concerned.

Further proof of the results of the degradation of marriage

Why we need to define marriage as exclusively the union between one man and one woman...

When homosexuals started to clamor for the right to marry, many warned that doing so would so weaken the foundations of marriage that every crackpot and deviant would demand the same rights. We were told we were alarmist homophobes. Now this from Yahoo! News...

Fundamental Mormons seek recognition for polygamy

By Jason Szep Tue Jun 12, 7:17 AM ET
CENTENNIAL PARK, Arizona (Reuters) - When Ephraim Hammon returns home from a day of working construction near Arizona's border with Utah, he's greeted by his wife SherylLynne. And then by his wife Leah.

Polygamy, once hidden in the shadows of Utah and Arizona, is breaking into the open as fundamentalist Mormons push to decriminalize it on religious grounds, while at the same time stamping out abuses such as forced marriages of underage brides.

The growing confidence of polygamists and their willingness to go public come at an awkward moment for mainstream Mormons, who are now in the spotlight as Republican Mitt Romney, a prominent Mormon, seeks the U.S. presidency.

Wow, no one saw this coming! Predictably, fundamental mormons claim that they are fighting the same struggle as the civil rights movement, the same argument we hear from homosexual advocates....

Her husband likened the struggle for acceptance with the civil rights movement. "It's like the work Martin Luther King did in relation with African Americans," he said, holding year-old Ava, one of his eight children, in the living room of his three-story home in Centennial Park, a dry, dusty Arizona town run by polygamists near the Utah border.

The thought that those fighting for equal rights for those born of one skin color being compared to those who choose a deviant lifestyle, whether homosexuality, pedophilia or polygamy is grotesque and rightly riles up civil rights activists who see that the comparison is ridiculous. The article does point out in several places that fundamental mormons are in many ways more true to the original church than the modern, sanitized mormon church..

Excommunicated by the church, they see themselves as true believers in Mormonism as practiced by founder Joseph Smith.

Historians say Smith took at least two dozen wives, some of them before 1843, the year he announced a revelation from God saying polygamy was a crucial key to entering the Kingdom of Heaven...

I did love this line...

"I don't think the revelation that Joseph Smith received came from Christ," said John Llewellyn, a retired Salt Lake County policeman who once practiced polygamy but now campaigns against it. "I think it came from his Y (male) chromosome."

Exactly right. The polygamy revelation of Joseph Smith was nothing more than a cover for his adultery and license to commit even more of the same. Marriage must be defended now before it is completely destroyed in this society.

More on Mitt

Mitt Romney is quoted in an article on Yahoo! News titled Romney says being Mormon won't hurt him. The article is pretty uninteresting until more than half way through...

Mitt on polygamy:

"Look, the polygamy, which was outlawed in our church in the 1800s, that's troubling to me," he said. "I have a great-great grandfather. They were trying to build a generation out there in the desert. And so he took additional wives as he was told to do. And I must admit, I can't imagine anything more awful than polygamy."

This is either intentionally deceptive or lacking any sort of understanding of the history of his own church. I have a hard time believing that Romney, coming from the family he does and being a former bishop and stake president, is unfamiliar with the doctrines and history of the mormon church. True that polygamy was no longer practiced, openly, at the end of the 1800's but it was certainly practiced in secret and in foreign lands after it was "outlawed" in Utah.

The repopulating argument is a common one when mormons get pressed on polygamy, making it out to be this terrible burden that mormon men were forced to endure for the good of the church. But the truth is somewhere else I think. Joseph Smith selected young girls because they struck his fancy. The reality is that having extra wives was a privilege for Smith's cronies, who were rewarded for their loyalty with extra wives. It certainly wasn't awful for the men involved, although it likely was for the women. Doctrine & Covenants 132 declares the doctrine of polygamy, which Smith had been practicing for some time prior to publicly announcing it, and it has never been revoked. Polygamy is still a valid doctrine in mormonism, one that is not currently practiced openly. I still cringe when I read the portion of revelation directed at Joseph Smith's wife Emma, who was being chastised in this "revelation" for objecting to her husband's adulterous behavior...

54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

55 But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an hundredfold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.

56 And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice.

Polygamy is often laughed about in mormon circles today. But in those days it was nothing to sneer at, and Joseph Smith is a man who was willing to cheat on his wife and then threaten her with his fake revelations to shut her up when she complained. I hardly think Mitt Romney is ignorant of his own past.