polygamy

Two fundamentalist Mormon leaders from Bountiful, B.C., are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on polygamy charges.

Winston Blackmore and James Oler have yet to enter a plea.

Blackmore, 52, is the former bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Bountiful. Oler, 44, is the current bishop, who replaced Blackmore.

Blackmore’s indictment lists 19 women with whom he is said to have “practised a form of polygamy or practised a kind of conjugal union” between May 1, 2005 and Dec. 8, 2006.

Oler’s indictment lists only two names: Renae Oler, his legal wife, and Amelia Steed.

Blackmore and Oler each lead a faction within the Bountiful community of about 1,000, which has been bitterly divided since 2002.

Source/Full Story: vancouversun.com

If this isn’t screwed up I don’t know what is.  Polygyny is a form of marriage, people.

A large proportion of Canadians believe certain specific social behaviours are morally acceptable, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion published in Maclean’s. At least 79 per cent of respondents feel this way about contraception, sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman, divorce, and having a baby outside of marriage.

In addition, at least half of respondents think medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos, abortion, sexual relations between two people of the same sex, doctor-assisted suicide, gambling, buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur and the death penalty are morally acceptable.

Less than 20 per cent of respondents believe married men and/or women having an affair, polygamy, cloning humans and paedophilia are morally acceptable.

Source/Full Story: Angus Reid Global Monitor

Source: New Scientist

Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Rather than a call to polygamy, the research might solve a long-standing puzzle in human biology: Why do men live so long?

This question only makes sense after asking the same for women, who – unlike nearly all other animals – live long past the menopause.
Enforced monogamy

One answer seems to be a phenomenon called the grandmother effect. For every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren, Lummaa says. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect.

To test this possibility, the team analysed church-gathered records for 25,000 Finns from the 18th and 19th centuries. People tended to move little, no one practiced contraception and the Lutheran Church enforced monogamy.

Only widowed men could remarry, and if they had children with their new wife, they fathered more kids, on average, than men who married once.

But ultimately remarried men “don’t end up with any more grandchildren,” Lummaa says. “If anything the presence of a grandfather was associated with decreased survival of grandchildren.”

Perhaps, Lummaa adds, the children of the first mother lose out on food and resources that go to the second mother’s kids. “It’s kind of the Cinderella effect.”

Even fathers with only one wife provided no benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.

…

Source: Houston Chronicle

Indicting members of a polygamist sect on child sexual assault is one thing.

But prosecuting anyone on child sexual assault charges is a much different, and tougher, thing to accomplish, according to legal experts.

Even if Texas Child Protective Services comes back with a finding that sexual abuse happened at the sect’s Yearning for Zion Ranch in West Texas, the standard for a child sexual assault conviction is much higher, said professor Ellen Marrus, who heads the University of Houston’s Center for Children, Law and Policy.

“The problem isn’t so much proving the issue that there had been sexual contact,” Marrus said. “The bigger issue is proving who did it. … So unless the child testifies that she had sex with a Mr. A or Mr. B, you don’t have any proof who did it.”

On July 22, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, 52, and four of his followers — Raymond Merrill Jessop, 36; Allan Eugene Keate, 56; Michael George Emack, 57; and Merrill Leroy Jessop, 33 — were indicted on sexual assault of a child charges. A sixth man, Lloyd Hammon Barlow, 38, was charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse. Jeffs is in custody in Arizona, where he is accused of arranging underage marriages. The other five surrendered to authorities last week.

Under Texas law, sexual assault of a child occurs when an adult has sexual contact with someone younger than 17.

In the bible you find plural marriage not only to be a common and accepted form of marriage, but also a protected one. The biblical definition of “marriage” is not “one man one women”, but “becoming one flesh” (Gen 2:24), and since according to Paul you can become one flesh with a whore (1 Co 6:16), it is by no means restricted to “one man one woman as such”, but to “one man one woman at a time”. The point about marriage in the bible is that it is a lifelong commitment, a lifelong responsibility, and it is formed by the act of becoming one flesh – no church, no state necessary. By sleeping with someone, you marry him or her. That’s the biblical concept of marriage, it is as simple as that.

If polygamy was sin, why would God tell David through the prophet Nathan that He has not only given him his predecessor’s wives into his arms, but would also have given him more if that was not enough? But David had to run off and sleep with a married woman (adultery = sleeping with a married woman, the marital status of the man does not figure into the definition), and then kill her husband by proxy (murder) – see 2 Sam 12:8.

If polygamy was sin, why would a man be required to take his widowed sister in law and produce offspring with her in order to provide an heir for his untimely deceased brother, no matter if he was married already or not (Deu 15:5-10) ? This, by the way, is also contrary to the common incest laws.

If polygamy was sin, why would the law of Moses specifically provide for the first wife and protect her from being cast aside for a ‘younger model’, as man in his fallen state is prone to do (Exo 21:10)?

If polygamy was sin, why would Jesus portray himself as the bridegroom to ten virgins, five of which proved themselves to be unprepared and therefore unworthy (Mat 25:1-13)?

And if polygamy was sin, why would God portray Himself as the husband of two wives to make His point about the idolatrous nature of His people (Eze 23)?

Marriage, according to Scripture, can be either polygamous or monogamous.  The important bit about marriage, however, is that it is a lifelong commitment, a covenant not to be broken by man – the only exception being the woman committing adultery (Deu 24:1, Mat 19:9). Adultery and whoremongery are sexual relationships outside this marriage relationship, not inside of it. You cannot commit adultery with you own wife, or be a whoremonger with your own wife. That’s why the marriage bed of a polygamist is undefiled (Heb 13:4).

Let’s continue where we left off last time we talked about marriage, and elaborate a little on what Scripture has to say about marriage.

Like we said, to read romantic notions of marriage, i.e. exclusivity between one man and one women into biblical marriage is to insert a secular, romanticized concept into the bible that is simply not there.

If you want to point to the “Song of Solomon” for notions of romantic love, please remember who Solomon was and how many wives he loved – and yes, he sinned in not listening to the commandment not to multiply wives to himself as the king (Deu 17:17), and in marrying foreign wives who turned out to be a snare to him with their foreign religions (1 Kings 11:1-6). And Jesus came through this line, came through people like Abraham and Jacob, through the union of Judah and Tamar, David and Bath Sheba, Uriah’s widow, all of whom were people who in some way or another lived in a polygamous relationship, or in the case of Judah and Tamar, had issues with the Levirate marriage commandment – check it out in Matthew 1 and the respective chapters in Genesis, 2 Samuel and 1 Kings.

If you want to point to Paul talking about letting every man have his own wife and every women her own husband (1 Cor 7:2) to prove that Paul advocates monogamy, please look at the two different Greek words translated as “own” here and you will find that they both pertain to the man, that both state possession from the man’s perspective – her “own” husband is her “proper” husband, the husband that properly possesses her, just as his “own” wife, “own” being a reflexive pronoun here, is the wife that he possesses, that belongs to him, that he is responsible for. If you look at the language, this verse is not a verse pointing to exclusivity with regards to how many wives a man can have, but rather to a woman belonging to one man alone, thus pointing to the responsibility on the part of the man, but doesn’t indicate quantity when it comes to wives.

Besides, the context in 1 Co 7:2 indicates the reason for marriage in the first place: to avoid fornication. Men have to take responsibility for every woman they sleep with for by sleeping with a woman, a man makes her his wife. Even in today’s world, by the way – a marriage that is not consummated is not a valid marriage in court, but could be dissolved based on the fact that it was never consummated, since it can legally be considered null and void. So the biblical standard is kept up here in this regard.

The bible uses no specific term for polygamous relationships, but simply calls having a wife or more than one wife “marriage” – and whenever “marriage” is mentioned in the bible, it refers to the biblical definition of marriage that includes both polygamy and monogamy, and not to a modern day definition of marriage that is based on a romantic concept and a social preference, in our small part of the world, for this romantic ideal.

Someone asks: polygamy is it godly?

Naturally, our position is that indeed a polygamous family is godly…always has been and always will be. In the Scriptures there is no differentiation between monogamy and polygyny. It’s all the same, ie. marriage, and we all know what God has to say about marriage.

“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Mark 10:9 ESV

A while back we had a brief blog post on one of our sites (I cannot recall which) concerning Oprah’s broadcast about polygamy. A main feature of this broadcast was an investigative reporter by the name of Lisa Ling. Well, it seems as though this particular episode has been re-broadcast, because many people are showing up on our sites who are looking for more information.

If you know anything about us, or have read any of the materials on our sites, you know that we do not watch television, and haven’t done so in several years, so we have no information about Oprah, Lisa Ling, or their perspectives on plural marriage in the United States…we can only assume it’s not much different from the majority viewpoint.

However, since people are coming to the site seeking information, we would to say a few words, since we have your attention

First, stop watching television. The reasons are numerous, and well documented, and require no elaboration from us…either you will read this little tidbit of advice and heed it, or you will not. We hope that you do. For us, there is not enough time in the day to waste on garbage like the Oprah Winfrey Show, and would hope that you discover some better ways to utilize the gift of time that God has given you here, such as working together in a family business, reading aloud, long walks, or rolling around on the floor tickling the little ones.

Secondly, the world is filled with false teachers and false prophets (profits), and it is our position that Oprah Winfrey is one of them. She leads people astray in all directions (away from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob),  with New Age mumbo jumbo, and has for years. Ummm, stay away from such people.

Thanks for listening

A lot of verses in the bible talk about marriage (Heb 13:4, Psa 128:3, Pro 5:15-23, 1 Co 7:2-3), and they are very wonderful verses, stressing the beauty and responsibility of a lifelong commitment made before God and the beauty of people caring for each other in a godly fashion. God protects marriage indeed, it is a godly bond that secures the dominion covenant.

But the conclusion that theses quoted verses prove polygamy to be sinful, adulterous and whoremongery is wrong – here, presuppositions shape theology, and not the other way around. Polygamy, according to the presupposition, is not marriage, so the verses about marriage cannot apply to one man and many wives, but have to apply to one man one wife only. This presupposition is not a biblical, but a romantic concept.

Polygamy, viewed from a biblical perspective, is simply “marriage”. If you look up the word “marriage” and its verb in the Old and New Testament, you will find that the word is related to:

• a contract – “to marry: to give yourself in marriage, to take a wife, to get married” (H2992, G1060),
• a possession – “to possess, to rule over” (H1166),
• conjugal rights, literally, the flesh (H5772b), and
• a ceremony (G1062).

Nowhere is there mentioning of “star-crossed lovers”, a “soul mate”, or the “prince on the white horse”, so to read romantic notions of marriage, to read exclusivity between one man and one women into biblical marriage is to insert a secular, romanticized concept into the bible that is simply not there.

We have a dream of what our Christian plural marriage family will look like, and if you are potentially interested in joining us as a sisterwife, here is what would await you, what you would be a vital, active participant in.

We dream of a big family, up to seven wives and our husband, and a whole lot of children, as many as God might grant us. We hope that our Christian polygamous family will be multi-generational soon, either with old or left-alone parents of the sisterwives to join us, or when our children are old enough and take over what will be prepared for them, so that there can be progress both in Kingdom Building and in the raising of a God fearing, patriarchal, independent, self-sufficient, big polygamous family that

“shall speak with the enemy in the gate” (Ps 127:5).

Read more.

To live a godly life, it is of utmost importance to be removed from today’s society as far as possible (Rev 18:4-5), and to raise our children in God’s way so that they do not have to turn 35 before they realize which choices would have been right, which way they should have taken from the beginning to avoid defiling themselves with uncleanliness, immorality and fornication. (Pro 22:6; Gal 5:19-21) This removed lifestyle is much easier to put into practice as a group of adults than as a couple, for it needs many hands to build the family’s house and premises, to grow all the family’s food, to sew all the family’s clothes, to homeschool all the children, to provide for the old as well as for the young, in short, to build a Christian, godly home.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Pro 29:18)

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christian polygamy, plural marriage, polygyny

First of all, our husband will provide for you as he provides for all the members of the family (1 Ti 5:8), so that it might be well with his house (Deu 5:29). I am not talking about livelihood here, but about spiritual guidance and leadership (Jos 24:25), about life long responsibility and protection, about a commitment to God and to each other before God. Our husband will see to it that you are safe and secure, and you will follow God’s word and our husband’s lead – you will give yourself into the hands of our husband to love you and care for you all your life, and to protect you from the wicked outside world as well as from temptation to the best of his ability, and you will follow God’s commandments to show that you love God and your husband, just as all the other members do. You will join a group of adults that is determined to stand fast to the end (Mat 24:40), and cling to God’s word (Deu 30:19-20) as Scripture , both Testaments, conveys it to us.

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polygyny, polygamy, plural marriage, christian