Original title: The Family - A Proclamation: Ambiguity, Idolatry, and Eunuchs

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the twentieth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (May 8-14) is titled "What Lack I Yet?", and covers Matthew 19-20, Mark 10, and Luke 18.

We invite you to worship with us on any Sunday - either at First Baptist Church of Provo or Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna. We welcome visitors!

*Fanny Alger was seventeen years old! It was Helen Mar Kimball who was fourteen years old.

Sources:

D&C 132; original D&C 101; D&C 26.2; D&C 28.13

"The Family: A Proclamation to the World"

The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith by Lyndon W. Cook

Seminary Manual: Matt 19.1-12; Matt 19:16-30

New Testament Made Easier by David Ridges

Gospel Topics Essay: Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, where in it states that one of his wives, Helen Mar Kimball, was "sealed to Joseph several months before her fifteenth birthday". That must be the LDS church's way of saying that she was fourteen. (See also HC 6.411)

"The Love and Laws of God" (Russell Nelson)

"Two Great Commandments" (Dallin Oaks)

Compare audio and text: "Cleansing the Inner Vessel" (Boyd Packer)

LDS Living Article - note: Nelson sealed to more than one wife

Gordon B. Hinckley on Larry King Live

"Obedience, Consecration, and Sacrifice" (Bruce R. McConkie)

Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie

"Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire...Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by set of robbers...Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord's servants have always practised it. 'And is that religion popular in heaven?' It is the only popular religion there,..." (The Deseret News, August 6, 1842)

"The one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality..." (Millennial Star, vol. 15, p. 227)

The Pratt-Newman Debate: "Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?" (here)

The Seer by Orson Pratt (pp. 12, 124-125, 178; also JD 13.195)

Brigham Young: "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy." (JD 11. 269); see also JD 13.317

John Taylor: JD 11.221

Heber C. Kimball: "You might as well deny 'Mormonism,' and turn away from it, as to oppose the plurality of wives. Let the Presidency of this Church, and the Twelve Apostles, and all the authorities unite and say with one voice that they will oppose that doctrine, and the whole of them would be damned." (JD 5.203); see also JD 23.278

Joseph F. Smith: JD 20.28-31

D&C 130 (expectation that Jesus would come back in around 1890)

• Prophet/President Wilford Woodruff, alone, predicted British LDS would remain on earth "until the coming of Christ" (Jan. 26, 1840); told the LDS in northern Arizona "There will be no United States in the year 1890" (June 28, 1879); stated (by revelation) that the second coming was "nigh at the door" (Jan. 26, 1880); promised LDS in Manti "that thousands of the children...would not die but would live to see the Saviour come" (Aug. 14, 1881); told LDS in St. George that "there were thousands living in [the] mountains at [that] time that would see the son of God come and many would not taste death" (Mar. 20, 1881) - and similar predictions on Dec. 31, 1885, and then on Feb. 16, 1886. And that is just one of the early apostles/prophets! (As a Thief in the Night by Dan Erickson, pp. 83, 187-88, 190-191, 197)

It should be noted that this is the context for the Manifesto on polygamy - esp. in light of Wilford Woodruff (then senior apostle!) even prophesying in the Manti Temple that "we are not going to stop the practice of plural marriage until the coming of the Son of man." (ibid., p.200, also here)

In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith by Todd Compton

Junius and Joseph by Robert Wicks and Fred Foister

Conflict in the Quorum by Gary Bergera

The Mormon Jesus by John Turner

"LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904" by D. Michael Quinn

"The Art of Scripture and Scripture as Art: The Proclamation on the Family and the Expanding Canon" by Boyd J. Petersen and David W. Scott (found in The Expanded Canon, ed. by Blair G. Van Dyke et al.)

Gay Rights and the Mormon Church by Gregory A. Prince (esp. ch.'s 4-6, 19, 28); also here

No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie

Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? by Jerald and Sandra Tanner

An Earnest Plea to LDS; Magical Mormon Scriptures (Jason Wallace)

Resources:

Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism by Chris Jennings

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self; Strange New World by Carl Trueman

The Bible Among the Myths by John Oswalt

From Sacrament to Contract by John Witte

Envy by Helmut Shoeck

Matthew: A Mentor Commentary (2 vols.) by Knox Chamblin

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey

Stories with Intent by Klyne Snodgrass

They Also Taught in Parables by Harvey McArthur and Robert Johnston

Christianity and Liberalism; The Person of Jesus by J. Gresham Machen

Core Christianity; Christless Christianity by Michael Horton (also here and here)

American Gospel: Christ Crucified

What is the Gospel? (Voddie Baucham)

Active and Passive Obedience of Christ (Simply Put)

Grace and Glory by Geerhadus Vos (also here)

You Are Not Your Sexuality (Sam Allberry)

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield

God & Sex (Reality SF)

Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill