Vol. 8, No. 5, 1991

Articles on Mormonism

Tom Forehand

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, created one of the most male-centered system of works salvation which was ever devised by the mind of "man" (a "male" man).

In the early 1840's Smith gave a revelation which he claimed to have received from God. Today it is known as Section 132 and is still found in the Mormon scripture Doctrine and Covenants.

That "revelation" still claims that if Mormons do not practice polygamy ("do the works of Abraham Abraham received concubines, and they bore him children and it was accounted unto him for righteousness" vv. 32,37) they will be "damned" (verse 4).

According to the revelation, a Mormon man may have ten "virgins" (verse 62). Also, the revelation implies that the practice of polygamy is intimately intertwined with becoming a "god" (verse 37).

However, today's Mormons are presently not allowed to practice all of the requirements of this, their own revelation.

Today, a Mormon man is not allowed by his church to have two or more living, legal wives at the same time.

Also in contradiction of Section 132, some Mormons now claim that polygamy is not even necessary for "salvation" (Mormon Doctrine, p. 578).

Yet, today's Mormons use Section 132 as a basis for their eternal marriage ceremony performed in Mormon temples.

Interestingly enough, the late Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie claimed that polygamy would be reinstituted in the millennium (Ibid).

Although today's Latter-day Saint doesn't really like to talk about the practice of polygamy, Saints who lived in Utah Territory last century didn't mince their words about the absolute necessity of polygamy for one's salvation.

Mormon writer Richard Van Wagoner states:

"Mormons nearly always entered polygamy because they believed it essential to their salvation, that God required it of them. Anne Clark Tanner was certain the women would never have accepted polygamy had it not been for their religion. The principle of Celestial Marriage was considered the capstone of the Mormon religion, only by practicing it would the highest exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom of God be obtained," (Mormon Polygamy: A History, pp. 90-91).

Basically, a good Mormon man was looked upon by his wife as a type of savior.

Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt thus warned women, "that you can never obtain a fullness of glory without being married to a righteous man for time and all eternity." (The Seer, p. 140).

Also, non-Mormon men were "not in the way of salvation; they cannot save themselves nor their families" (Ibid).

How did polygamy help one become a "god" or thus reach "the highest exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom?"

For one to be a "god" (who can have his own world), he must propagate millions of children in order to first merit his own planet according to Pratt (Ibid, p. 32).

Apostle Pratt also reasoned, that if a god had more than one wife "the period required to people a world would be shorter in proportion to the number of wives." (Ibid, p. 39).

The more children one could propagate in this world would no doubt help him to more quickly reach godhood; thus, the main role of the Mormon's wives was to stay pregnant!

No doubt, this is also one of the reasons why it can be a damnable sin today for Latter-day Saints to practice birth control (Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 2, p. 88ff.).

Last century, Brigham Young reminded Mormon women of what would bring them real happiness.

"How will you be happy? Delight yourselves in your duties, mothers. Love your duties, sisters. Are you sealed to a good man? Yes, to a man of God. It is for you to bear fruit and bring forth, to the praise of God, the spirits that are born in yonder heavens and are to take tabernacles on the earth.

You have the privilege of forming tabernacles for those spirits. That is what plurality of wives is for, and to gratify lustful desires. Sisters, do you wish to make yourselves happy? Then what is your duty? It is for you to bear children in the name of the Lord that are full of faith and power of God - receive, conceive, bear, and bring forth in the name of Israel's God, that you may have the honor of being the mothers of great and good men of kings, princes and potentates that shall yet live on the earth and govern and control the nations. Do you look forward to that? or are you tormenting yourselves by thinking that your husbands do not love you? I would not care whether they loved a particle or not, but I would cry out, like one of old, in the joy of my heart, `I have got man from the Lord!'" (Journal of Discourses, Vol 9, p. 37).

Brigham certainly never had to fear being damned by practicing birth control - his fifty wivesand fifty children attest to that!