FLDS community = Hell on earth

[Wolfwoman]

The FLDS community sounds like Hell on earth and my heart breaks for the people in it.

I’m so glad I was born in the LDS church, even with all its problems. Can you imagine growing up in this kind of community?

Missing Teen’s Mom Breaks Silence About FLDS Experience and Her Forced Marriage and Why She Left the Church
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2023/01/m ... tid=Zxz2cZ

[tmac]

I have quite a bit of background with this subject matter, and will make a few observations that actually seem to be quite consistent with much of what Elizabeth Roundy says in her interview.

These are my thoughts, based on my personal experience and observations:

LeRoy Johnson, or "Uncle Roy," as he was affectionately known, was the FLDS leader and "prophet" for quite some time. During his tenure, Short Creek truly was a fairly Zion-like place -- much more so than anything we have seen in the mainstream LDS Church since the Manifestos.

On that score, this is a noteworthy quote from the interview:

“We had a good life growing up [in a family with eight sister wives and 20+ children]. All of our family got along pretty good and all my siblings loved each other as if we didn’t have different mothers,” Roundy explains. “I had a very good father who taught us the gospel. I’m very grateful for my good parents.”

In my case, I spent most of my youth in Sanpete County, and in the neighborhood where we lived in Manti in the 1970s there were three FLDS households, belonging to Orvil Johnson and his wives. Orvil was the oldest of Uncle Roy’s many sons, and I have known most of them and their wives and families, and I have maintained contact and relationships with many members of the very large Johnson family, both inside and outside the FLDS Church. Some of my closest friends and associates have been cousins and nephews of Uncle Roy, including one who served as an LDS stake president, and currently serves as stake patriarch.

When Uncle Roy died, the line of people seeking to attend his viewing in Short Creek stretched for over a mile. He was a very highly-regarded leader, and at that time, the FLDS were a very happy, industrious, self-sufficient people -- seeking to live Celestial laws that the mainstream LDS church had completely given up on decades earlier.

In various capacities, I also ended up having a variety of experiences with the Jeffs’ regime that succeeded LeRoy Johnson, and it would be my observation that everything changed at that point. From the time Uncle Roy died until now, the FLDS Church and people have been in a downward spiral for the last 30+ years, including serious travesties in the last 10 or so.

But just so people clearly understand what is going on now, arranged marriages are not an issue. At this point there are no marriages at all. There are no children being conceived or born among the FLDS. There is no authorized reproductive/procreative or sexual activity among the FLDS at this point, based on an edict supposedly issued by Warren Jeffs from prison about 10 years ago.

I have to agree that at this point life in the FLDS community does seem to be Hell on earth, but perhaps not in all the ways that some people may think. They are not getting married, not having children, and the state took over their United Effort Trust, and kicked people out of their homes.

I know a whole family of one of Uncle Roys grandsons -- probably 20+/- siblings in the 20-30 year-old range, who are essentially refugees, all unmarried, working together in a family joint business venture, which is the functional equivalent of a celibate monastery. They have no spouses, no children, and are just trying to make the best of a bad situation. But no one is forcing them to do anything. They may be brainwashed, but they are doing it by choice, as a matter of their own free will.

I have to agree, at this point, the FLDS Church is a serious mess. But so is the LDS Church, in my opinion, with its ever-increasing worldliness and whoring in Babylon.

So, pick your poison, and if Babylon better suits your taste, the LDS Church and the direction it is headed will obviously seem preferable.

[Reluctant Watchman]

Pick your poison, and if Babylon better suits your taste, the LDS Church will obviously seem preferable.

I'm glad there are many more options.

[Wolfwoman]

I have quite a bit of background with this subject matter, and will make a few observations that actually seem to be quite consistent with much of what Elizabeth Roundy says in her interview.

These are my thoughts, based on my personal experience and observations:

LeRoy Johnson, or "Uncle Roy," as he was affectionately known, was the FLDS leader and "prophet" for quite some time. During his tenure, Short Creek truly was a fairly Zion-like place -- much more so than anything we have seen in the mainstream LDS Church since the Manifestos.

I spent most of my youth in Sanpete County, and in the neighborhood where we lived in Manti in the 1970s there were three FLDS households, belonging Orvil Johnson and his wives. Orvil was the oldest of Uncle Roy's sons, and died several years ago. Since then, I have maintained contact and relationship with many members of the very large Johnson family.

When Uncle Roy died, the line of people seeking to attend his viewing in Short Creek stretched for over a mile. He was a very highly-regarded leader, and at that time, the FLDS were a very happy, industrious, self-sufficient people -- seeking to live Celestial laws that the mainstream LDS church had completely given up on decades earlier.

In various capacities, I also ended up having a variety of experiences with the Jeffs regime that succeeded LeRoy Johnson, and it would be my observation that everything changed at that point. From the time Uncle Roy died until now, the FLDS Church and people have been in a downward spiral.

But just so people clearly understand what is going on now. There are no arranged marriages at this point. At t his point there are no marriages at all. There are no children. There is no authorized reproductive or procreative activity among the FLDS at this point, based on an edict supposedly issued by Warren Jeffs from prison about 10 years ago.

I have to agree that at this point life in the FLDS community does seem to be Hell on earth, but perhaps not in all the ways that some people may think.

I know a whole family of one of Uncle Roys grandsons -- probably 20+/- 20-30 year-old siblings, who are all unmarried, working together in a family joint business venture, which is the functional equivalent of a monastery. They have no children, and are just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

The FLDS Church is a serious mess. But so is the LDS Church, in my opinion, with its ever-increasing worldliness and whoring in Babylon.

Pick your poison, and if Babylon better suits your taste, the LDS Church will obviously seem preferable.

I’m glad it used to be better for them.
This goes to show what can happen when a king-like leader goes bad.

At least in the LDS church you would have the freedom to decide who you marry and when. And you wouldn’t be banished for having a miscarriage. Or be separated from your children because that’s what the prophet-king felt like doing today. Or have your teenage daughters “married” off as someone’s 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th wife.

Heck, I’d rather have been born Catholic or Protestant or non-denominational Christian if it meant I still had my freedom.

[Chip]

Warren Jeffs is like a King Noah. If he's not having a good time, no one else will be. This all shows how cowed people can be by spiritual tyrants. So, their perverted prophet has now stopped all procreation among the members. Hello? You all can ignore him now. You do have a choice here. More idolatry. One characteristic of all Mormon sects is their propensity to be tremendous respecters of persons. Men generally wind up before God within Mormon minds.

[tmac]

The way I have heard it described (and observed) is that as long as a bunch of old cowboys were running the FLDS Church, they got along just fine. But once the urban accountants took over, it went straight to Hell in a hand basket.

On the other side of the equation, I suspect that there are probably just as many TBM Mormons who hang on every word of RMN, as there are FLDS who hang on every word of WJ.

The thing is, there is scriptural support for the concept of arranged plural marriage. I'm not aware of any scriptural support for embracing Babylon, including the LGBTQ agenda. But once we've been boiled slowly in woke Babylonian bath water, more people would probably bail-out over the return of plural marriage, than same sex marriage. We're in an interesting spot, and it's all a matter of perspective, I suppose.

[Wolfwoman]

The thing is, there is scriptural support for the concept of arranged plural marriage.

Barf. Just because it’s not LGBTQ that does not make it okay.

[tmac]

Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective. Apparently, from God’s perspective, arranged plural marriage may be acceptable in some situations, whereas obviously you find that thought very repulsive. Just a matter of perspective.

[Wolfwoman]

Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective. Apparently, from God’s perspective, arranged plural marriage may be acceptable in some situations, whereas obviously you find that thought very repulsive. Just a matter of perspective.

I guess I’m a big fan of liberty and women not being treated like chattel.

[Luke]

Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective. Apparently, from God’s perspective, arranged plural marriage may be acceptable in some situations, whereas obviously you find that thought very repulsive. Just a matter of perspective.

I guess I’m a big fan of liberty and women not being treated like chattel.

Tell that to the DOZENS of plural wives whom I actually know and have lived around for extended periods of time—who are very happy with their situations, and who aren’t just faking it.

[tmac]

Everyone is entitled to their positions and paradigms, and we’re all entitled to discuss them with our Maker as well. In the overall scheme of things, what my personal opinions, paradigms and preferences are really doesn’t make that much difference. But, as you have alluded, God is not going to force us to do anything. All He wants us to do is hopefully exercise our liberty to do His will.

[Luke]

Unfortunately people confuse the FLDS sect with all Fundamentalists, the same way people confuse the LDS Church with Mormonism.

[tmac]

Yes, for those who don't know the difference, it's easy to do.

[Wolfwoman]

Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective. Apparently, from God’s perspective, arranged plural marriage may be acceptable in some situations, whereas obviously you find that thought very repulsive. Just a matter of perspective.

I guess I’m a big fan of liberty and women not being treated like chattel.

Tell that to the DOZENS of plural wives whom I actually know and have lived around for extended periods of time—who are very happy with their situations, and who aren’t just faking it.

It was the part about the marriage being arranged that made it sound icky to me. So if they entered into it willingly and they’re happy, then that’s great for them.

I guess it’s still possible to be happy in an arranged marriage, but it doesn’t sound ideal to me. Maybe marriage was more of a societal necessity/ monetary arrangement/ duty in the past and romantic marriage is a new concept. But the romantic marriage notion worked out for Joseph and Emma Smith.

[Niemand]

Unfortunately people confuse the FLDS sect with all Fundamentalists, the same way people confuse the LDS Church with Mormonism.

Fair point. What they both share in common is publicity and international fame.

Jeffs seems a bit of a paedo, and I've heard of incest allegations too. I don't think either of those can be excused.

[Luke]

Unfortunately people confuse the FLDS sect with all Fundamentalists, the same way people confuse the LDS Church with Mormonism.

Fair point. What they both share in common is publicity and international fame.

Jeffs seems a bit of a paedo, and I've heard of incest allegations too. I don't think either of those can be excused.

Warren is obviously thoroughly deceived and disgusting.

Unfortunately all Fundamentalists get lumped in with him.

[Luke]

Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective. Apparently, from God’s perspective, arranged plural marriage may be acceptable in some situations, whereas obviously you find that thought very repulsive. Just a matter of perspective.

I guess I’m a big fan of liberty and women not being treated like chattel.

Tell that to the DOZENS of plural wives whom I actually know and have lived around for extended periods of time—who are very happy with their situations, and who aren’t just faking it.

It was the part about the marriage being arranged that made it sound icky to me. So if they entered into it willingly and they’re happy, then that’s great for them.

I guess it’s still possible to be happy in an arranged marriage, but it doesn’t sound ideal to me. Maybe marriage was more of a societal necessity/ monetary arrangement/ duty in the past and romantic marriage is a new concept. But the romantic marriage notion worked out for Joseph and Emma Smith.

Again, the FLDS is not the same thing as Mormon Fundamentalism. The FLDS is just one small segment of the Fundamentalist movement, just like the LDS Church is just one branch of the Latter-day Saint movement as a whole, or the Catholic Church is just one denomination of Christianity.

Also, romance is clearly antithetical to the type of marriage covenant God designed. Not that it’s bad—but having that as a foundation rather than the concept marriage being a social contract designed to create godly social structures being the foundation—is false. Expectations have been totally subverted. It’s no wonder that lasting marriages are becoming more and more rare. Correlation is not causation but it’s hard to ignore a decline in lasting, successful marriages coming along at the same time as this concept of Hollywood-style romance going mainstream.

Nice attempt at trying to say that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist by the way . Not going to work with me though

[Niemand]

Unfortunately people confuse the FLDS sect with all Fundamentalists, the same way people confuse the LDS Church with Mormonism.

Fair point. What they both share in common is publicity and international fame.

Jeffs seems a bit of a paedo, and I've heard of incest allegations too. I don't think either of those can be excused.

Warren is obviously thoroughly deceived and disgusting.

Unfortunately all Fundamentalists get lumped in with him.

I suppose it's similar to how all Christians can end up getting tarred with the same brush over abusive RC priests...

I have no problem with polygamy as long as people agree to it properly, are full grown adults and not closely related to their spouses. Unfortunately Jeffs' outfit appears to falls down on all three of those scores.

Correlation is not causation

Makes a change to see this phrase used outside of the context of explaining away jab injuries!

[tmac]

It has always been interesting to me the way people (especially women — as if they are the only “victim(s)” in the equation) freak-out about arranged marriage, while the track record of “romantic” pairing is a 50% divorce rate, which is not a very good recommendation.

The primary mating system for most mainstream Mormons is to simply send their kids to college (especially BYU and BYUI — sometimes referred to as the “happy hunting grounds”) , cross their fingers, and let hormones do the rest. My own view is that the resulting track record is hardly anything to brag about.

Every time an FLDS girl runs away or an FLDS woman leaves her husband it’s supposed to be a big news story, while tens of thousands of LDS women leave their husbands for a myriad of reasons, and no one bats an eye. Further evidence of the strong inherent biases.

In this instance and other recent cases, it is interesting that the applicable teenaged girls have run away from foster care or their mothers who “escaped." Their purpose in running away was to return to their faith communities, etc. In this case, a 16 year-old girl “borrowed” her “escaped” mother’s car and risked life and limb to presumably return to her faith community. Whether others agree with those choices or not, I would say that some liberty/agency was being exercised there.

[Wolfwoman]

I guess I’m a big fan of liberty and women not being treated like chattel.

Tell that to the DOZENS of plural wives whom I actually know and have lived around for extended periods of time—who are very happy with their situations, and who aren’t just faking it.

It was the part about the marriage being arranged that made it sound icky to me. So if they entered into it willingly and they’re happy, then that’s great for them.

I guess it’s still possible to be happy in an arranged marriage, but it doesn’t sound ideal to me. Maybe marriage was more of a societal necessity/ monetary arrangement/ duty in the past and romantic marriage is a new concept. But the romantic marriage notion worked out for Joseph and Emma Smith.

Again, the FLDS is not the same thing as Mormon Fundamentalism. The FLDS is just one small segment of the Fundamentalist movement, just like the LDS Church is just one branch of the Latter-day Saint movement as a whole, or the Catholic Church is just one denomination of Christianity.

Also, romance is clearly antithetical to the type of marriage covenant God designed. Not that it’s bad—but having that as a foundation rather than the concept marriage being a social contract designed to create godly social structures being the foundation—is false. Expectations have been totally subverted. It’s no wonder that lasting marriages are becoming more and more rare. Correlation is not causation but it’s hard to ignore a decline in lasting, successful marriages coming along at the same time as this concept of Hollywood-style romance going mainstream.

Nice attempt at trying to say that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist by the way . Not going to work with me though

Maybe calm down a little bit.

I never said that FLDS and Mormon fundamentalists are the same, so I’m not sure why you’re accusing me of that.

I never said that Joseph Smith didn’t practice polygamy (at least not in this particular thread). So I’m not sure why you’re accusing me of that either. Emma’s parents didn’t like Joseph and didn’t want her to marry him, so it was about the furthest thing from an arranged marriage that you could have. And they married each other because of romantic love. If it was okay for them, it’s okay for me.

[Sarah]

It has always been interesting to me the way people (especially women — as if they are the only “victim(s)” in the equation) freak-out about arranged marriage, while the track record of “romantic” pairing is a 50% divorce rate, which is not a very good recommendation.

The primary mating system for most mainstream Mormons is to simply send their kids to college (especially BYU and BYUI — sometimes referred to as the “happy hunting grounds”) , cross their fingers, and let hormones do the rest. My own view is that the resulting track record is hardly anything to brag about.

Every time an FLDS girl runs away or an FLDS woman leaves her husband it’s supposed to be a big news story, while tens of thousands of LDS women leave their husbands for a myriad of reasons, and no one bats an eye. Further evidence of the strong inherent biases.

In this instance and other recent cases, it is interesting that the applicable teenaged girls have run away from foster care or their mothers who “escaped." Their purpose in running away was to return to their faith communities, etc. In this case, a 16 year-old girl “borrowed” her “escaped” mother’s car and risked life and limb to presumably return to her faith community. Whether others agree with those choices or not, I would say that some liberty/agency was being exercised there.

The issue here indeed is freedom. But once you tie the knot you loose freedom to mate with whomever you want to. I know lots of people who have stuck it out in unhappy marriages too, and good for them if they are thinking of their children first before themselves. The main problem with polygyny is that it gives the husband more freedom in the form of love and attention from the opposite sex, and the wife less freedom in that regard. You might say that he would have less freedom because he has to work harder to provide, and that's why you see the wives going off to work, not being with their kids or having less children in these arrangements because it's just impractical and impossible on a financial level to have multiple families to provide for. It simply elevates the privileges of the husband more than it does the wife. That's why people have a problem with polygyny. The logical solution is to also give the wife more freedom, if you're going to receive it for yourself.

[Wolfwoman]

It has always been interesting to me the way people (especially women — as if they are the only “victim(s)” in the equation) freak-out about arranged marriage, while the track record of “romantic” pairing is a 50% divorce rate, which is not a very good recommendation.

The primary mating system for most mainstream Mormons is to simply send their kids to college (especially BYU and BYUI — sometimes referred to as the “happy hunting grounds”) , cross their fingers, and let hormones do the rest. My own view is that the resulting track record is hardly anything to brag about.

Every time an FLDS girl runs away or an FLDS woman leaves her husband it’s supposed to be a big news story, while tens of thousands of LDS women leave their husbands for a myriad of reasons, and no one bats an eye. Further evidence of the strong inherent biases.

In this instance and other recent cases, it is interesting that the applicable teenaged girls have run away from foster care or their mothers who “escaped." Their purpose in running away was to return to their faith communities, etc. In this case, a 16 year-old girl “borrowed” her “escaped” mother’s car and risked life and limb to presumably return to her faith community. Whether others agree with those choices or not, I would say that some liberty/agency was being exercised there.

Women are probably more free to leave their husbands now than they were in the past. In the past they may have been stuck in an unhappy marriage, unable to leave because it would have been financially impossible to do so. So maybe women have more financial freedom and opportunities now than in the past. And that means they can leave an abusive relationship.

[tmac]

For sure.

Like this poor, abused sister DW told about over on the birth control thread:

viewtopic.php?t=69380

In church on Sunday, a nice, relatively young sister (new to the ward) gave a talk and by way of introduction mentioned she divorced a little over a year ago. She tried to not get into any details, which is good in that setting. Well, she said he was a "good man", that that they just wanted different things, that his wishes for her were "too traditional". After the divorce she went on to finish her MBA and remarked how blessed she is financially now, able to "experience the world" (no joke) and has a great job that she hopes to have for "the rest of her life". (She's teaching business at a prominent university in Utah County.)

[Wolfwoman]

Shrug
We all have our free agency. And the world is full of sinners. This is the telestial world after all.

[Sarah]

For sure.

Like this poor, abused sister DW told about over on the birth control thread:

viewtopic.php?t=69380

In church on Sunday, a nice, relatively young sister (new to the ward) gave a talk and by way of introduction mentioned she divorced a little over a year ago. She tried to not get into any details, which is good in that setting. Well, she said he was a "good man", that that they just wanted different things, that his wishes for her were "too traditional". After the divorce she went on to finish her MBA and remarked how blessed she is financially now, able to "experience the world" (no joke) and has a great job that she hopes to have for "the rest of her life". (She's teaching business at a prominent university in Utah County.)

Perhaps the guy was abusive in his expectations, and his mode of communicating that - we don't know. But you shouldn't assume every woman who divorces is doing so for selfish reasons. There are a lot of selfish men and women out there. Let God be the judge.