Some Anti-Mormon’s will try to debate and argue some preceived ills of the LDS Church. It is their attempt to breed contempt, contention and rebellion in our hearts and minds. They are determined to convince us that the authority of this Church continued to practice polygamy contrary to it’s 1890 Manifesto stopping the practice. An Anti-Mormon of late tried to convince me that this Church lied or misrepresented itself. Initially, this was not a concern to me but this person spurred me to research more about the matter and this is what I found.
Little did this Anti-Mormon know that I would find good information discrediting his claims. I seek truth and good understanding, giving credit where credit is due. That happens to be what Jesus Christ and this Church teaches.
The following are excerpts from “historic” documents or sources.
OFFICIAL DECLARATION 1
DATE: 24 SEPTEMBER 1889
PLACE: SALT LAKE CITY, UTAHIt was under these circumstances that Wilford Woodruff, then the president of the Church, announced the Official Declaration to the Church and to the People of the United States, commonly referred to as the Manifesto. President Woodruff wrote in his journal: “I have arrived at a point in the history of my life as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints where I am under the necessity of acting for the temporal salvation of the Church. . . . and after praying to the Lord and feeling inspired, I have issued the following proclamation which is sustained by my counselors and the Twelve Apostles” (Clark, Messages, 3:192).
After reviewing the enactment of the law prohibiting the practice of plural marriage and the effects of its enforcement, President Woodruff, in this declaration, said: “Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the Court of last resort, I do hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use all my influence with the members of the church over which I preside to have them do likewise. . . . And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the laws of the land” (Clark, Messages, 3:193).
The Manifesto was signed by President Woodruff as president of the Church. A motion in the October conference of that year called for the members of the Church to sustain what President Woodruff had done:
“I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding” (Clark, Messages, 3:195).
The vote to sustain the motion was unanimous.
(Please note, some of these are excerpts due to the length of the declaration, so for brevity sake, I pulled out the most important part.)
OFFICIAL DECLARATION.
WILFORD WOODRUFF, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Salt Lake City, Utah,
October 6th, 1890.To Whom it may Concern:
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy,
I, therefore, as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching Polygamy or plural marriage, not permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy, and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
There were more declarations made by this Church,
April 3, 1904 (Sunday)
The 74th annual conference of the Church convened in Salt Lake City; it continued until the 6th. At the closing session of the conference Pres. Joseph F. Smith declared in a written statement that no plural “marriages had been solemnized with the sanction, consent or knowledge of the Church” since the “manifesto” was issued by Pres. Wilford Woodruff Sept. 24, 1890; and Pres. Smith further announced that all plural marriages “are prohibited;” and that any one who should assume to “solemnize or enter into such marriage” would become subject to excommunication from the Church.
This led to another official declaration,
Official statement on plural marriages, April 6, 1904
1904-April 6-Conference Reports, April, 1904, p. 75.
Both President Smith and President Francis M. Lyman of the Council of the Twelve had been chided on the witness stand in the Smoot hearings because there were those who felt that the Church was not taking a firm enough or “tough” enough stand with violators of the rule of the Church against plural marriages. This official declaration, here adopted by a vote of the General Conference, reinforces the stand President Smith had previously announced in his March Testimony.
President Joseph F. Smith said:
I am going to present a matter to you that is unusual and I do it because of a conviction which I feel that it is a proper thing for me to do. I have taken the liberty of having written down what I wish to present, in order that I may say to you the exact words which I would like to have conveyed to your ears, that I may not be misunderstood or misquoted. I present this to the conference for your action:OFFICIAL STATEMENT
“Inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have been entered into contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff, of September 26, 1890, commonly called the Manifesto, which was issued by President Woodruff and adopted by the Church at its general conference, October 6, 1890, which forbade any marriage violative of the law of the land; I, Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction, consent or knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and“I hereby announce that all such marriages are prohibited, and if any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage he will be deemed in transgression against the Church and will be liable to be dealt with, according to the rules and regulations thereof, and excommunicated therefrom. JOSEPH F. SMITH, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ”
. . . President Francis M. Lyman presented the following resolution and moved its adoption:
RESOLUTION OF ENDORSEMENT
“Resolved that we, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in General Conference assembled, hereby approve and endorse the statement and declaration of President Joseph F. Smith, just made to this Conference concerning plural marriages, and will support the courts of the Church in the enforcement thereof. ”The resolution was then adopted, by unanimous vote of the Conference.
Of course, the attention to plural marriage did not end there. Since 1904, there were other declarations against plural marriage.
Official statement on plural marriage, April 4, 1931
1931-April 4-Conference Reports, April, 1931, pp. 5-14.
This was an official statement of the President of the Church to the Church members and to the detractors of the Church on the subject of plural marriages. It should be noted that President Grant states that the statement he read to the Conference had been “unanimously approved” by the First Presidency, the Council of the Twelve Apostles, the Presiding Patriarch, the First Council of Seventy, and the Presiding Bishopric before being read to the Conference. Also, as indicated, the General Conference approved it unanimously.
PRESIDENT HEBER J. GRANT
Decries PropagandaI desire to bring to the attention of the members of the Church some very regrettable and most annoying circumstances. I have taken occasion in times past to denounce the conduct of persons both within and without the Church who have palpably sought to bring disgrace upon the Church and reproach to its leaders in the circulation of propaganda for and the unlawful practice of pretended “plural marriage.” Notwithstanding the positive, unequivocal declarations which I have made from time to time on this subject, and in spite of the vigorous and unvarying prosecution within the courts of the Church, from the tribunals of the bishops to the Council of the Twelve Apostles, of cases arising out of violations of the law of the Church forbidding absolutely the practice of plural marriage-notwithstanding all these efforts on the part of the authorities of the Church to suppress the unlawful practices and propaganda of these people, we find that there are still a number, relatively small we hope, who persist in teaching the doctrine and maligning the leaders of the Church.
Punished When Found
Wherever the Authorities of the Church have been able to locate such persons and secure sufficient evidence to warrant their conviction, they have, without fear or favor, been dealt with and excommunicated from the Church. This procedure is the limit of Church jurisdiction. We have been, however, and we are entirely willing and anxious too that such offenders against the law of the State should be dealt with and punished as the law provides. We have been and we are willing to give such legal assistance as we legitimately can in the criminal prosecution of such cases. We are willing to go to such limits not only because we regard it as our duty as citizens of the country to assist in the enforcement of the law and the suppression of pretended “plural marriages,” but also because we wish to do everything humanly possible to make our attitude toward this matter so clear, definite, and unequivocal as to leave no possible doubt of it in the mind of any person.To Protect the Unwary
There are always to be found in any large group of people some who are uninformed, credulous, and easily susceptible to the persuasions of more forceful personalities. Such persons are often well-meaning and at heart very devoted to the Church. It is a matter of sorrow and deep regret to us that some such members of the Church have been inveigled by designing men and fanatics into the support and practice of unlawful relations. It is largely for the protection of such class of people within the Church and similarly minded converts to the Church that we feel the necessity of stressing this unpleasant subject so much.The machinations of the proponents of unlawful marriages are, of course, carried on largely in secret. The Church has no adequate way of thwarting their endeavors before much harm is done, although the officers of the Church, from the highest to the least, are definitely instructed to be constantly on the watch for such teaching and propagandists. We have hesitated somewhat to make public statements or denials to charges and false assertions published in literature sent out by these enemies of the Church and its administration, because we have felt that added publicity to their pernicious statements would be gratifying to them and probably useless in stemming their activity. There is scarcely a man among the leading authorities who has not been defamed by them, both in print and speech.
Widely Circulated
They have circulated their literature as widely as possible with their available means, even sending defamatory pamphlets to the missionaries of the Church in their fields of labor, extending to Europe. We suppose that in some instances this material may fall into the hands of investigators, weak members of the Church, and others who already, by reason of misrepresentation, are prejudiced against us. There are some, undoubtedly, among these who give credence to that which they read, although, of course, we should be able to expect and we do expect that no missionary of the Church would credit such false assertions.False and Slanderous Statements
These publications are not only slanderous of the leaders of the Church but they are calculated to cast a blemish on the fair name of our State. Their authors are apparently without conscience as to the truth of their statements, seeking only to influence those who are uninformed and gullible. They have charged me and many of my brethren here with the commission of crime and have manufactured circumstances as fictitious as the imagination may conceive. We have felt that it was beneath us to make reply to such false and malignant accusations. We have believed that neither the people of the Church nor those outside the Church with whom we live as neighbors and fellow citizens would expect us to answer. If there are any of our brothers or sisters or friends who feel that there are any circumstances which warrant an answer or defense on our part, we assure any such we shall be glad to satisfy them on their request. And when we say our friends we mean our friends, not those who write anonymous letters, or individuals who make false statements about us.Perhaps we are presumptuous, but we feel that our standing in the community as men of integrity and honor is a sufficient rebuttal to these infamous charges made against us.
President Widtsoe Maligned
In most instances the misrepresentations and false accusations have been made by way of recital and innuendo, with an apparent effort to shield the authors and publishers from legal responsibility. In one recent instance, however, they have been bold enough to print a libelous attack on President John A. Widtsoe, supposedly because they knew of his expected presence here for conference. The circumstances recited are wholly fictitious and false, and are presented, undoubtedly, with the purpose of creating prejudice against him and injuring his work in Europe. We think that the high esteem in which Doctor Widtsoe is held, not only in the Church but in his State and as a national figure, makes unnecessary any reply to such calumny. However, if he desires he may have the facilities we can afford to protect himself and to prosecute the defamers of his good name.Absolutely Forbidden
Now, in conclusion, let me state again, as I have done many times before-and my statement is meant for every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for our neighbors and friends who dwell in the communities where we live, and for the whole world-that the Church does not countenance, aid, abet, tolerate or sanction in any way, shape or form the contracting of so-called “plural marriages,” but that on the contrary it absolutely forbids the members of the Church from entering into any such unlawful relations or teaching or encouraging such practices, and that it will continue in the future as it has done in the past to deal with and punish to the extent of its authority any persons who violate these injunctions. I do not know how to make it plainer or more forceful. If I did I would do so.As I read this I recall that the statement is made that the leaders of the Church can practice these things. So when this is published I will say that this applies to all the General Authorities of the Church and the members, for fear these falsifiers will start another falsehood.
The Position of the Church
I want the officers of our Church, our missionaries, all who in any manner represent us, to know beyond any doubt whatsoever that this is the straightforward, honest, unequivocal position of the Church, and I want them all to know that any person or persons who question this assertion cast reflection upon the honor and integrity of the men who stand at the head of the Church as its General Authorities, for this statement sets forth not only my own views and purposes, but it is sustained in every detail, in letter and in spirit, by each and every member of the First Presidency, the Council of the Twelve Apostles, the Presiding Patriarch, the First Council of Seventy, and the Presiding Bishopric, to whom it has been submitted and by whom it has been unanimously approved.And I wish to say that I want it understood that so far as God gives me power to give His word to the people, it is the word of the Lord.
With that declaration, the Church states that there were false accusations and claims made by Anti-Mormons. I believe that such false accusations did occur. I believe it because I personally experienced Anti-Mormons making similar accusations, one of note is the recent encounter where an Anti-Mormon tried to breed contempt toward this Church in regards to plural marriage. It is obvious that the evil spirit of contempt and lies that attacked the Church in the early 1900′s still prevails today in the hearts of Anti-Mormons.
The Church did not in any way continue to practice plural marriage. I know this to be true, because I have experienced the authority of this Church long enough to see that they will not disobey God or his prophet. The scriptures hold many examples of what happens to disobedient people of God. They do not last long in God’s Church and are “cast out”.
Suffice to say, that even though plural marriage was not practiced, it was continued, in secret, by members who chose to ignore the order of the Church and continue it on their own accord. In that case, it was not God’s faithful, but those who chose to abide in evil. Is that not what occurred in the early Christian Church as well? Members who turned to Satan and worked against the Church.
When I joined this Church I told a friend in the Church that there are members who are false and work for Satan. I was right.
This next declaration shows that wayward members were a problem.
Official statement on plural marriage, June 17, 1933
1933-June 17-Deseret News, Church Section, June 17, 1933; also produced in pamphlet form.
Despite everything President Grant and his counselors had issued since he became President of the Church on November 23, 1918, and despite everything which his predecessor, President Joseph F. Smith, and his counselors had said and written during his administration from 1901 to 1918, there were still people who insisted on teaching and practicing plural marriage, contrary to the laws of the land and of the Church. This message, with its accompanying quoted documents, is a historical review and reaffirmation of the position of the Church.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Office of the First Presidency Salt Lake City, Utah June 17, 1933 To Presidents of Stakes and Counselors,
Dear Brethren:
As persistent reports are coming to us of activity by a group said to be propagating a false doctrine and illegal practice of polygamous or plural marriage, (the group apparently being composed of avowed or virtual apostates from the Church, of persons excommunicated from the Church, and of a few misguided but otherwise faithful members of the Church) we have deemed it wise to issue, under date of June 17th, 1933, and by way of warning and exhortation, an Official Statement which calls attention to the activities of that group, and which points out that neither the group nor its activities are in any way connected with the Church, that not only are the activities unauthorized and therefore illegal and void, but that they are contrary to the rule of the Church and the will of the Lord as revealed through President Woodruff and adopted by the Church, and that marriages performed by members of this group are false and mock marriages.It is almost unnecessary to add that the activities of this group are violative of the laws of the land and that certain of the group members seem subject to criminal prosecution.
We desire that this matter shall be fully and directly called to the attention of every Latter-day Saint, that none shall be in ignorance of the falsity of the doctrines or of the illegality of the practices of this group, nor in doubt as to the spiritual falling away of its members and those who follow them, nor unaware of the Church disciplinary measures which must be taken against unrepentant participants in this unrighteous and rebellious activity.
Any Church member belonging to this group or adopting or advocating its doctrines and practices is not to be considered in good fellowship in the Church, is not entitled to and should not be granted any of the rights and privileges appertaining to Church members-such as entry into the temples, the payment of tithes, participation in the activities of the priesthood quorums or of the auxiliary organizations of the Church, or in other Ward, Stake, or Church activities-and should, unless now truly repenting, be immediately and formally dealt with by excommunication, as directed in the Official Statement.
The great law-abiding, faithful Church membership cannot and must not be brought into disrepute, nor their honor and good faith challenged, by a small group of recalcitrant and evilly-led Church members in rebellion.
To this end we are sending you by current mail sufficient copies of the Official Statement and of this letter to enable you to supply each Bishop in your Stake with one copy of each, and to have one copy of each for yourselves. You will designate a Sunday in your Stake at which this letter and this Official Statement may be read in the regular sacrament service, preferably the Fast Day service, and you will instruct each Bishop in each of the Wards of your Stake to have both these documents carefully and clearly read at such designated service.
Each President of Stake and each Bishop will proceed immediately to correct any situation of the kind described and existing within his jurisdiction. There must be no condoning of or trifling with this rebellious condition which must be brought to an end at once.
Yourselves and each Bishop should preserve these documents and should give to each person desiring to read and study them, full opportunity so to do.
Sincerely your brethren in the Gospel, HEBER J. GRANT, ANTHONY W. IVINS, J. REUBEN CLARK, JR., First Presidency.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
From the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints
Reprint from The Deseret News, Church Section, June 17, 1933The First Presidency have recently received letters making inquiry concerning the position of the Church regarding the contracting of polygamous or plural marriages. It is evident from these letters, as well as from certain published material-some of it distributed during our last General Conference-that a secret and, according to reputation, an oath-bound organization of misguided individuals is seeking to lead the people to adopt adulterous relations under the guise of a pretended and false polygamous or plural marriage ceremony.
While the position of the Church since 1893 has been repeatedly set forth, namely, that polygamous or plural marriages are not and cannot now be performed, yet in order that there may be no excuse for any Church member to be misled by the false representations or the corrupt, adulterous practices of the members of this secret, and (by reputation) oathbound organization (of which the history of the Nephites and Lamanites show so many counterparts), it is deemed wise again to set out the position of the Church on this matter . . . of which many young Church members may not be fully aware.
Would the Anti-Mormons care about this fact, that wayward members who have apostatized are the ones responsible for any existence of plural marriage after 1889?
Of course they would not care at all. For them to accept the fact that irresponsible and disobedient members are not representative of this Church and do not represent the practices and beliefs of this Church, would be a slap in their face. Such a fact and honest confirmation of that fact would make their claims against this Church as useless. As usual then, Anti-Mormons have no sense of morality and would easily lie.
It is not hard to take historic information and twist the truth out of it, but it takes courage and integrity to look at the “facts” logically and fairly to determine the true state of affairs, but of course, evil and Anti-Mormons, or disgruntled ex-Mormons would never do such an honourable thing.
Amen
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