Hi all, I am a long time lurker but I just registered to make my first post because something in my research has been bothering me for a while.

Wilfred Woodruff ended polygamy with the manifesto that we now call "Official Declaration #1" in 1890 to appease congress and finally make Utah a state (after 6 failed attempts). It is obvious in the manifesto that this decision had nothing to do with god or revelation and he didn't say anything about the change in policy being revelation until more than a year later (in the 2nd of the three excerpts following the manifesto dated Nov 1 1891)

Does anybody know what happened in between these events? Did he make any "revelation" claims before 1891? Was this little speech to address criticisms by angry polygamists? I'm sure they weren't happy about it.

Ok - trying to post a link. It is banned from the board. Google wilford woodruff mormon (and then the word curtain) and you should find it. It is a good place to start, you can look more at sources.

Here is a bunch of stuff about WW, polygamy, and the manifesto. When I was losing my faith it really othered me that WW published the manifesto, was a prophet of god, a believer in following the Articles of Faith (living the law of the land) and then he kept right on allowing polygamous marriages to occur (for some...the royalty, I guess. It looks (circumstantially) like he even participated in one. He was lying to the mormons and lying to the world. Figured that it wasn't a far stretch that the church was lying to me too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2012 10:48PM by goatsgotohell.

(1) Nowhere in the text of the "manifesto" is any mention made of God.

(2) Nowhere in the text of the "manifesto" is any mention made of any "revelation."

(3) Nowhere in the text of the "manifesto" is any mention made of any "commandment."

(4) When the "manifesto" was presented in conference for a sustaining vote of the membership it was not called a "revelation." In fact some apostles did NOT vote to sustain it.

What the "manifesto" does is give Woodruff's (not God's) "ADVICE" to the Church.

Now many at the time viewed it as "beating the Devil at his own game." That the manifesto was a ploy to get the government of the church's back. At the time the manifesto was issued the government had taken over ownership of many church buildings including the Salt Lake Temple. This was because the Church was, at that time, a criminal organization that was inducing its members to break the law.

Many viewed the manifesto as a public way to denounce the PRACTICE of polygamy while continuing it secretly underground.

The "revelation" mentioned later, that Woodruff was shown what would happen if he didn't issue it (by the way, it had ALREADY happened. This is another example of a revelation predicting something that has already occurred) does not say that the manifesto was a revelation, just that SOMETHING had to be done to get the government off the Church's back.

The fact that plural marriage continued long after the "manifesto" showed that apostles and members of the First Presidency did not consider it a revelation, but considered it a ruse.

The fact that on Feb. 22 1897, Apostle Heber J. Grant sealed Mitt Romney's great-grandfather Miles Park Romney to his fifth wife shows that they did NOT consider it a revelation or even a binding "policy."

The manifesto was not a revelation, it was a lie.

People calling it a "revelation" now and saying "God withdrew plural marriage by a revelation" are fudging their history.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2012 11:06PM by baura.

Maybe it was a "negative" revelation like the lifting of the priesthood ban on men of color - SWK and the apes prayed saying "we are making this change, if you (god) don't agree, give us a sign". Poof, no sign, so god obviously approved of their action.

His words expressed, thinly veiled, an underlying fear of losing worldly possessions, the land and buildings they cherished.
It could be viewed, from the perspective of faith, as admitting that there was no God anywhere that was willing to protect their bubble of belief in the objectively unfair principle of polygamy much further.

The final sentence in official declaration in the D & C states:

"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."

The entire manifesto doesn't mention revelation or a command from god but states the directive is advice from Wilford Woodruff.

And wasn't it him or one of his predecessors that said something to the effect that polygamy would never cease in the church and that if it did, one would know for sure that was a sign of apostasy? I've read it before but can't quote the reference.

This is also the time period where the FLDS say he secretly gave them the commission to carry on the most holy practice.