In the spirit of G.K. Chesterton --
"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong." - The Catholic Church and Conversion
-- I applaud the new polygamy pages on the BYU website:
New BYU Polygamy Website
The church sets a better example for its members when it attempts to grapple with, rather than ignore, its own history.
[Mormon culture] reminds me of those deaf parents who are so committed to the admittedly impressive culture that the unhearing have made for themselves that they actually become hostile towards new technologies that can return hearing to babies born deaf.
There are days that I feel like the hearing son of loving deaf parents. I feel the beauty of the sacrifice and effort of my Mormon pioneer forebears, but the cruel (wonderful?) reality is that I was born with ears that hear.
Should I pretend not to hear, for the sake of keeping up appearances, for the sake of family unity, for the sake of the "culture"? Is this what is being asked of me? If I refuse, am I "anti-deaf" or am I, quite simply, whole?
I can't speak to the beauty of the sacrifice or effort of my Mormon pioneer forbears because I honestly don't know much about what they sacrificed above and beyond what anyone's ancestors sacrificed... charting new territory, surviving harsh conditions, etc... I suppose they were simply doing the same thing we do. Trying to survive and make the best of life. You (and everyone on this planet) should absolutely pursue wholeness in whatever form that means to you. And you are right about the labels. None of us is a label and we are entitled to our own thoughts, ideas, and pursuits.
14 comments:
Strange, the polygamy.byu.edu pages I'd read and linked to seem to have been taken down in the time since I originally commented on them. The link now redirects to ldsfaq.byu.edu and contains none of the info that led me to applaud what looked like a new openness. Not sure what's going on ...
I know I'm not mistaken, because I see that John Dehlin also linked to the new pages over at his blog:
http://johndehlin.com/blog/?p=105
Curiouser and curiouser ...
Hmmm, the sideblog link to the new polygamy pages is still up at the By Common Consent blog, but the link's been redirected as well ...
Left-side frame under Sideblog at www.bycommonconsent.com (BYU debuts a website devoted to Mormon polygamy)
Too bad I didn't cache the pages, I don't think they were up long enough for Google to cache either ...
Well, I've left a comment over at BCC and we'll see if anyone there's able to shed light on the short-lived debut of those polygamy pages ...
Nope, my mistake, they were up long enough for Google to cache, e.g.:
Sample cached polygamy.byu.edu page
Man, I hope it doesn't cause any problems for this guy ... apparently, it was his project.
OK, this blog entry seems to be by someone with an inside track on the original BYU Polygamy Pages. I'll be curious to see if his blog notes their passing ...
http://mormon-chronicles.blogspot.com/2007/02/byu-polygamy-page.html
Well, BCC have left the link up, but now it doesn't redirect to ldsfaq.byu.edu, it just reloads the current page with this odd piece of code:
http://www.bycommonconsent.com/%3Cstrike%3Ehttp://polygamy.byu.edu/index.html%3C/strike%3E%20And%20thus%20the%20anti-sites%20retain
Oops, I guess Blogger doesn't allow lines to run as long as the URL I tried to paste ...
http://www.bycommonconsent.com/
%3Cstrike%3Ehttp://polygamy.byu.edu/index.html
%3C/strike%3E%20And%20thus%20the%20anti-sites%20retain
Sorry for all this, I've noted the salient points over at my blog and will carry on from there. Didn't me to threadjack, just got a bit of a shock when the originally-supplied link didn't work as expected. Please feel free to delete these comments, I admittedly used your blog as a scratchpad as I started the process of piecing together some background on this 'incident' ...
Never mind, looks like the SLTrib beat me to it ...
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5166192
Bummer, thought I had a real 'scoop' ;-)
In any event, I think I may have encouraged a couple of bloggers to post on the removal ...
http://johndehlin.com/blog/?p=110
http://mormoninquiry.typepad.com/mormon_inquiry/2007/02/here_today_gone.html
Next question to my mind is: was the info accurate? I find it hard to believe that an asst. dean at BYU would haphazardly post church history, so my guess would be 'yes, but' ... i.e., it was historically accurate info, but didn't pass muster with either PR or Correlation ...
Ben over at Deseret Sunset seems to be on the case ...
http://deseretsunset.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/polygamy-website-gets-shut-down/
He even has a backup of the html files that made up the site that he apparently can send to interested parties.
Ben identified one of the reasons I'm kinda perturbed by this whole thing: the fellow who put together the polygamy pages actually did a nice job of it, and deserved better than getting his contribution yanked without explanation. Anyway, as Ben notes:
It is difficult to find unbiased information on hot topics such as polygamy and Mormons. It pushes buttons and makes some uncomfortable. This website was a great source for historical information that clarifies many issues. There are many sites such as the apologetic FAIRlds and others that provide some information. But an easy to search directory had not been implemented until polygamy.byu.edu was launched. But as quickly as it came it went.
Salt Lake Tribune reports former BYU polygamy site back on internet
at
Mormon Polygamy
Great post on polygamy in tribute to this 'incident'...
at Times & Seasons:
“Echoes of Lives Wrecked”
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