Here’s the link to our Haiti post. We also researched several good organizations operating in Haiti, raised awareness and funds. My daughter and I are continuing to raise money for Haiti.

The term “polygamy” is not gender-specific. It can refer to one woman, many husbands. “Polygyny” is the technical term for what Mormons practiced, and continue to practice via temple marriages when a spouse dies.

LDS members need to read it because they are sometimes judged for detailed content, and often don’t find out until they are in the process of being disciplined (for example, for various reproductive surgeries).

Also,presumably the book already exists in digital form, like most books/writing produced in our age. I was a programmer in the Church HQ; they’re pretty up to speed with the tech.

The Church Handbook itself asserts in the intro to Book 1 that it is printed for the sole use of church leaders.

I would also like to point out that maybe the church has more important things they are trying to digitize than a handbook. I can think of a few million things I would rather be able to see online than a handbook.

Polygamy is spelled with an m, not an n. I have never heard anyone say that they should keep the handbook hidden, secret, or any of those other claims. Could you please give me a valid LDS statement (link) where those claims can be found?

If one were to take the term God and substitute for it a diety-free “that which is observably good for human beings” (Senator’s Franken’s facts) then each of us could make a case for their beliefs based on results.

StT concedes: The initial issue was the wikileak of Church Handbook of Instructions. I’m famialiar with all aspects of these two books as I have for the last eleven years served in positions of lay leadership in the CofJCofLDS at the ward (single congregation) level. There is nothing in them that I am ashamed of, or that in my opinion ought not to be shared publicly. I don’t know why the church is hesitant to do this when everything else about our so called “secretive” church can easily be found through simple web searches. As long as the lay leadership of our church has need for written instructions (always), our critics will have all of this information with little effort and virtually instantaneously. It might as well be on lds.org.

Thanks to all.

Thanks for quoting my fine senator. He is correct. And when there is scientific proof of a God, feel free to call it fact. Until then, you’re operating on faith and opinion.

You are very lucky to have been going to church that long and never encountered negative preachings. Really. I miss that bliss.

There’s a lot of good in the church. However, it is comprised of imperfect humans who have said and done things that aren’t good. If you can’t accept that others have experienced that, I guess you have a limited horizon. Don’t be afraid to expand it. You can look at all aspects of the church – the good and the bad and still have faith without getting peavish with those who don’t.

However, as Senator Al Franken likes to point out…”you have the right to your own opinion, but you don’t have a right to your own facts”. God by His very definition must be about perfect truth and light. Anything short of this is falsehood. So we may argue about this God and that, but it all comes down to truth and falsehood. Pride, envy, miserliness…none of these things are preached where I go to church. I converted at the age of 18 and am now 52. For thirty-four years I’ve NEVER encountered ANY preachings of injustice or exhortations to blindness and deafness. ONLY exhortations to charitible acts. I go to church every single week that I’m not sick. There have NEVER been any Reverend Wright’s whose sermons you can sleep through if your initials are BHO. You can hold to your opinions if you are that intent upon being wrong and so determined to not expand your horizons to the extent that you can’t admit that the things that go on at the CofJCofLDS are part of what is good about this world and not part of what is wrong with it.

If you choose to worship the God of Fairness, then you take the side of the “obedient” brother in the parable of the prodigal son. Upon the return of the prodigal there was great celebation. The other brother complained to his father that he could not even kill a small goat to celebrate amongst his friends. He constructed a wall of victimhood and could not take joy in his brother’s return.

The God of Fairness is also the God of Pride

This is very true.

“Most victimhoods are chosen.”

The church is not exempt from choosing victimhood and falls back on it whenever its persecution complex sets in.

“The God of Fairness is a false god.”

All gods are created by man, including yours. I’ll worship fairness over discrimination and vengeance any day.

“If our church does not work out for you, then move on.”

Many have. That doesn’t negate our right to point out hypocrisy and bs.

Most victimhoods are chosen. The lack of fairness discussed in the above posts is a chosen victimhood. The God of Fairness is a false god. If our church does not work out for you, then move on.

This seems soooo farfetched.
Anyone?
thanks
DM

1. It must be done by proper authority
2. Both individuals must keep their covenants
3. The individuals must WANT to be together!

Nothing in the Gospel is done by force. The reason it’s difficult to break a sealing is because of our belief that this is part of the Lord’s work in organizing the resurrection among other things. The reason the rules are different for the women and men is because the men happen to hold the priesthood which is tied to Christ and the resurrection. Now much of what we do here in this life, which is imperfect, we believe will be sorted out during the Millennium. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be divorces and yet a perfect world is what we are all preparing for isn’t it? The problem isn’t with the law of the Lord, it’s with our fallen states and the tragic situations we find ourselves in.

As for polygamy, it was a common practice since the dawn of time and was even practiced by biblical patriarchs. Most Bible-believing Christians will go out of the way to ignore that fact, justify it or invent ideas about how the Lord just looked the other way because they didn’t know as much back then. No, he allowed it and even sanctioned it at times. In Jewish law, you could have up to four wives; a man was expected to take his brother’s wife if he died and to procreate with her so his brother could have posterity. Don’t believe me? Read Deuteronomy take brother’s wife 25:5 – “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.”

These people in ancient times were not perverts – we are the perverts. Our hyper-sexualized society frowns on polygamy but promotes promiscuity and fornication and adultery at every hand. In movies and TV is is portrayed as NORMAL for a man to go around sleeping with multiple women in his ‘dating life’. How can such as society look at polygamy with an untainted eye?

For the record, I am a Mormon, I have one wife who is the love of my life, and I think one is good enough for me I hope my comments can contribute positively to the discussion.

Respectfully,

Corey

To criticize leaders from afar is futile and weak….Because you have not been into the inner sanctum of Church Leadership and responsibility, remember this, God choose whom he wants and whom he calls he justify’s, who are you to criticize HIS judgment?

To all that criticize women for not “been there”in authority, if you want this or seek this for the betterment of other women, join the Anglicans, BUT God have always had men for leaders in his church, sent your complaint[s] to him in prayer, and wait for a reply from him.

Man is not alone in the Lord,the decree was sent forth in Genesis this has always been the case and always shall be forever and ever..
PS as a passing belt, your pathetic justification of your excuses, touches me…..YOU [all the above] removed yourself from the Lord, now you complain he’s not fair nor just, because you have no understanding nor comprehension of HIS wisdom, you say why hide it?…….It was never hidden but open for all [worthy and called] to behold….but what would I know of things like this,i’m but a humble son, who knows when it is wise to hold my tongue and breath, should I waste it for naught…
Matt 12
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
.. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Before one is allowed to join the Church they must be vetted by a male. When one is disciplined by the Church the judging of evidence and of the heart of the accused as well as the decision to disfellowship or excommunicate are made entirely by males.

Any doctrinal issues are decided entirely by males. When a baby is blessed a non-member father is allowed to stand in the circle but a faithful-member mother is not.

However women get soft chairs in the RS room. If you call this equality then your definition is different than mine

Giving the women the “soft chairs” while we use the “hard chairs” is a simple gesture, but it reminds us all to respect women and hold them in the highest regard.

Oh, wow. I’m sorry Soft Chairs, but that is the exact reason why you misunderstand the whole feminist complaint. Dittos to wren, but I couldn’t let this one go w/o my 2¢. Opening doors for women, standing up when they enter a room, these are holdovers from extraordinarily patriarchal societies. I love soft chairs, don’t get me wrong, but the reasoning behind why you’re giving them to the “fairer sex” is the exact reason why we call the Church (not just yours) misogynistic.

Women are the glue that hold your society together because they are the unpaid labor force that bears, raises, and educates your children. Women are the glue that hold your society together because they are the maids that cook and clean while the Men Of The House bring home the bacon.

There are many ways to argue that one Church or another is not misogynistic, but chairs is not the way to do it. Spend some time with FMH and come back with valid arguments for why women should stay in your Church.

And please do come back. Dissent is appreciated, as is dialogue. John is, as ever, the voice of reason & peacemaking. I’m the short fuse. But both of us enjoy the discussion and the points you can bring to the table.

Soft chairs…. as one of the women who was not held in the highest regard when I needed the support of the church most, I take issue with nearly everything you said. But sadly I know where you are coming from because I, too, used to buy into the same notions.

Your comment I quoted from above is sexist both towards men and women. If you think the church would be lost without women you are implying men are inept buffoons incapable of running anything on their own. We know this is not true because men excluded women from organizations and companies for many moons and some still do and they manage just fine. Don’t sell men short. Women are not better than men. Alternatively that statement could be seen as patronizing.

As for the rest of it, if you think a small gesture of soft chairs is holding someone in the highest regard… wow. Just wow. Such sweet platitudes might work for a fireside or charming discussion with one’s granddaughters who do not know that their primary purpose is to support the priesthood. It will not, however, sell people on something who seek to get information from all sources.

The truth is somewhere in the middle of the church and its critics, not in the fibers covering foam stuffed folding chair.