Joseph started practicing polygamy in 1838 (or was it 1833? It’s so hard to tell.), revealed it as doctrine in 1843, Brigham spread the fun to about 20% of the boys in the club. John Taylor said it was so important that it would never be taken from the earth. Less than 10 years later, under new management, Wilford Woodruff changes his mind and does just that. For the next 70 years or so the church proudly teaches that it’s a principle that will come back someday. Then when ‘correlation’ became the fashion, they swept it under the rug, with the rest of the uncomfortable and confusing doctrine. Today, when the church produces lesson material about the life of Brigham Young, they not only fail to mention polygamy, they even go so far as to edit any reference to multiple wives out of his words.
Another quick example. Every president of the church up to Gordon B. Hinckley has said that worthy members can become Gods of their own worlds when they die. So isn’t it interesting that Hinckley now denies that this is doctrine, and you cannot find it in the lesson manuals.
Now to the dilemma. When you ask a devout Mormon about any particular lost doctrine, they will claim that it was never a doctrine of the church. They will say that it is nothing more than a rumor or a tradition. That it was never taught. That it was taught, but not by a prophet. Or if you really pin them down, as in the case of the ridiculous pronouncements of Brigham Young or Orson Pratt that appear in the Journal of Discourses, they will say “It was never canonized, so it doesn’t count”.
As I contemplate this more, I realize this could easily be 3 or 4 blog posts, so I will stop here and get this one posted. As a parting thought, consider the last excuse. “It’s only doctrine if it is canonized, and if the body of the church sustains it in General Conference”. I will grant you that I was never a church scholar, but I can think of only a single doctrine that was accepted in this manner. That being the Official Declaration 2. Did I miss something?
