Mormon President Dead at 90, Church Goes Older for Replacement

What, no beard?

 

Facial hair is considered to be "vanity" in current Mormon culture. Back when I was studying Mormonism as part of my cult research, I would occasionally attend one of the stake meetings to observe their worship and teaching. I was quite conspicuous in the congregation because most of those times I had a mustache, and once I also had a full beard. The missionaries in attendance would always come talk to me at free moments to introduce themselves afterward.

 

The culture tends to consider older members as closer to God. Their President is their prophet, so they are not necessarily looking for engaging and vibrant. I'm not sure they have really had that at any time in their history.

 

This cult is very old and they have an elaborate governmental structure, as you know. While a man rises through the ranks so much time passes that the entire leadership becomes elderly. In the beginning there were a lot of young men in leadership who were interested in polygamy.

Do you think that Romney is lining himself up for Mormon leadership? Ezra Taft Benson served as Sec. Of Agriculture under Ike and then became Mormon President, for example.

 

The pressure on the last Mormon president was to allow same-sex "marriage" and female preachers--in other words, to become politically correct. It is hard to say what they will do next because of the instability of the cult. I consider Sandra Tanner of Utah Lighthouse Ministry to be the leading living authority on Mormonism. I think that the leading authority on Mormon polygamy in rural areas is Doris Hanson who has a weekly TV show called Polygamy: What Love Is This?--most of her shows are on You Tube

Polygamy is more vile than I ever imagined. In rural areas young men are denied education and kept at physical labor. They have no chance at marriage because the older men with money marry the younger women. If the young men run away, they have a difficult time adjusting to the modern world. As for the young women, people such as Doris Hanson have shelters to help them out of polygamy. Doris Hanson herself was a young woman being forced into a marriage with an older man but she ran away with only the clothes she was wearing and thus escaped. But some many others are trapped.

http://www.utlm.org/

http://www.whatloveisthis.tv/index.htm

 

Their prophet conveniently had a revelation that complied with U.S. law after losing their Supreme Court challenge, Reynolds v. United States.

If U.S. law were to change and specifically allow polygamy, there could be a new revelation or teaching, but it would also likely divide the Mormon faithful. Something that is often overlooked is that many Mormons are fairly recent converts from Christian denominations -- sometimes personally, or they are first generation -- and they tend to retain some of the Christian teaching and morality that does not normally conflict with the day-to-day views of Mormonism. Polygamy would be a hard pill for many Mormon faithful to swallow.

 

For a Vimeo documentary about the devastating effects of polygamy on people trapped in it, Lifting the Veil of Polygamy click here:

Polygamy: What Love Is This?

 

I think they will resist that, although they did make the change in the Book of Mormon in the 1970s to change the phrase "white and delightsome" to "pure and delightsome" because - for some reason - Mormons who were "persons of color" did not turn white when they persevered in the faith. The change was also made so that "non-white" persons could enter the Mormon priesthood.

The Tanners have a long history of good work in the field. Until this post, I had somehow missed that Jerald Tanner had passed away. I haven't done much Mormon work in the last 20 years or so, but I know their work up to that time was quite solid and I have no reason to believe that the situation has changed.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to check out her shows.

I have some close friends who have worked with persons - mostly women and girls - caught up in the Warren Jeffs Mormon cult (different than the Salt Lake City Mormons, for those who are not familiar), and they say similar things.

 

That was the position of the Mormons in Reynolds v. United States. Essentially, the Mormons are still able to practice their religion unless they violate U.S. law. For instance, U.S. law does not permit adherents to a religion to commit human sacrifice in the practice of their religion.

You can read the Court's decision here.

 

On this issue, I agree with you in spite of the abomination and depravity of polygamy as outlined in the documentary Lifting the Veil on Polygamy, Polygamy: What Love Is This?

Of course, I am not a lawyer but my lawyer or advocate has never lost a case (Jesus Christ the Righteous 1 John 2:1-2 (KJV) My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.

So when the Supreme Court ruled that two sodomites could marry and that the states could not define marriage, they painted themselves in a corner in my opinion. I think that they opened the door for the legalization of polygamy and of incest. I also think that the federal law outlawing polygamy could be declared unconstitutional by the same logic that no one but the court has a right to define marriage. And I think that the court will be forced to take a case soon because everyone knows that not only to the dozens and dozens of splinter sects of Mormonism have 50,000 to 100,000 people living in polygamy and child marriage, but also there must be an equal number, if not greater, of Muslims with four wives in this country in pits like Dearborn, Michigan and other no-go zones in America. Does the Nation of Islam practice polygamy?

 

Secular Humanists don't often seem to take issue with child sacrifice...I mean "choice".

 

Obviously, you are referring to abortion. The problem with your analogy is that, usually, those who support elective abortion do not realize that an unborn child is a person. And legally, an unborn child is not a person under the law, so the point is moot in terms of the topic of this thread.

Please don't turn this into an abortion thread. I suspect everyone here is at least anti-abortion, if not pro-life.

 

Not trying to make this about something it isn't; I was pointing out that [spiritually] dead people do what [spiritually] dead people do, and their morality is going to be necessarily ephemeral because it is not rooted in the unchanging nature of a Holy God.

 

The successor to the Presidency is determined by which member of the Quorum of the Twelve has served the longest. Hence the person who is most experienced becomes the next President of the LDS Church.
President Nelson served in the US Army Medical Corps during the Korean War
Was a heart surgeon
Served as an instructor at a prestigious medical school
Has held a variety of leadership positions in the church.
If you doubt his vibrancy (or that of others, say Elders Uchtdorf and Holland) feel free to check them out during general conference which is this coming weekend 31 Mar - 1 Apr.

 

That looks like he just found out that Joseph Smith does NOT hold the key to getting into heaven, but Jesus christ!

 

Which means what?