Effects of Mormon Reformation: Everyone 14 and Older Was Married

27 December

Wilford Woodruff 2period is provided by a letter from Wilford Woodruff to George A. Smith in April 1857: We George A Smithhave had a great reformation this winter; some of the fruits are: all have confessed their sins either great or small, restored their stolen property; all have been baptized from the presidency down; all are trying to pay their tithing and nearly all are trying to get wives, until there is hardly a girl 14 years old in Utah, but what is married, or just going to be. President Young has hardly time to eat, drink or sleep, in consequence of marrying the people and attending the endowments.” – Eugene E. Campbell and Bruce L. Campbell

Proverbs 6:32; “But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.”

Our post today isn’t just about the fallacious behavior of polygamy in early Mormonism, but the trickledown effect of what it produces, and we get no better explanation for it than from God’s word. The Bible is the absolute go-to authoritative resource for explaining what happens in a person’s life when you abandon Jesus. It’s amazing how it serves as such a great psych book, if you will. It spells out the cause and effect of everything!

As you can see in Proverbs, God warns us that when someone is actively living with sexual sin in their life, they lack understanding. The transliteration for understanding in the Greek is lēb. This word is a noun, and means ‘heart, feelings, or hard’.

This verse doesn’t just mean you lack intelligence (albeit, doing such a thing isn’t all that smart!), rather, the focus is what it does to you personally.

Although Mormons today may not be practicing polygamy in a literal sense, they spiritually condone it in their temple ordinances, and therein lies the problem. Their hearts have become hardened to the atrocity of it.

Polygamous Mormon LeadersThe ‘Mormon Reformation’ (1855-1857) was a result of LDS leaders’ proclaiming a call to action, so to speak. By and large, Brigham Young and others felt that most members had grown too comfortable in their new homeland they dubbed ‘Zion’. Brigham Young and others set out to shake things up, and gave everyone an ultimatum. Pony up monetarily in tithing, and get yourself  some additional wives. Or else.

Part of the end game with this is seen in our subject matter today. Everyone 14 yrs old and up, was married. The result of that as we saw in Proverbs is a hard heart, or a lack of feelings. Who can argue such a scenario when they were giving their 12-14 year old daughters away to their prophets? Their sexual sin was an infectious canker, promoting ungodliness and serving to destroy any relationship with the Lord.

Listed below is Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians. Notice his ominous warnings in the last verse; you’re considered a ‘Gentile’, and you don’t just hate each other, you hate God Himself.

Sadly, this is exactly what’s happened with Mormons; then and now. They’ve denounced the God of the Bible, and hate anyone who doesn’t obey.

1 Thessalonians 4:2-8; “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: 4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; 5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: 6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. 7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. 8 He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.”

As you can see, it didn’t take long before they caught on to the nightmare they singlehandedly created.

The divorce rate skyrocketed.

“Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57,”  Thomas G. Alexander, pp. 27, 33-35; “…Young called upon the elders “to put away their velvet lips & smooth things & preach sermons like pitch forks tines downwards that the people might wake up.”

Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow recognized the potentially disruptive consequences of such large numbers of new plural marriages. … Large families with multiple wives placed considerable strain on the marriage relationship…because of jealousy and family disputes. … Snow’s and Woodruff’s predictions proved prophetic as the 65 percent increase in new plural marriages during the Reformation led to a subsequent escalation in the divorce rate (Peterson 1981, 115, 117). Soon Brigham Young and other Church leaders began to recognize the problems created by the desire of members to demonstrate faithfulness by entering plural marriage. But despite Woodruff’s own concerns about polygamy, on 17 February 1857, he offered Brigham Young his fourteen-year-old daughter, Phebe Amelia, in marriage.”

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