True Freedom
February 4, 2006 Posted by Amy Hall
Now that I'm coming out of my daze (see my previous post), I have something to say, and it relates to more than just polygamy. In our society, we define “freedom” as the ability to do whatever we wish in our quest for happiness, and bold innovation is exalted; but does this lead to true freedom? There is a God-given human desire to seek freedom and fulfillment; but there's a terrible price to pay when we don't seek these things from God in the way He created us to receive them. Having not seen and believed that God's way is the way of joy, we rebel and grab at pleasures we think will make us happy and then suddenly find ourselves trapped in an empty world where nothing seems to make us happy and from which none of our efforts can quite free us. Though this tendency of the human heart extends beyond the subject matter of Big Love, a true story of polygamy illustrates the point well.
There's a book called Wife No. 19, written in 1875 by Ann-Eliza Young, Brigham Young's 19th wife. She left Young, fled
The Bible illustrates the heartache of polygamy, warns of its dangers, and asserts the superiority of monogamy, and yet the Mormon Church (for a time) embraced polygamy. They entered into their lifestyle of preference against God's stated wisdom and desire for them in favor of a new “revelation” they hoped would bring fulfillment; the result was misery for the women and children. Tragically, most of them did not try to change their situation because, since they were so immersed and isolated in their culture, they had no idea of the beauty of what they were missing. Ann-Eliza speaks of the power of seeing relationships as God meant them to be lived:
I had felt [polygamy's] misery; I had known the abject wretchedness of the condition to which it reduced women, but I did not fully realize the extent of its depravity, the depths of the woes in which it plunged women, until I saw the contrasted lives of monogamic wives…I now saw other women, holding the same relation, cared for tenderly, cherished, protected, loved, and honored….The contrast was so very great that, unless it was seen, it could not be realized, even ever so faintly.
The people had been taught to hate and fear Christians and Christianity though they had witnessed little of either; and so they clung to their ways–longing for a way out, but fleeing from the only real source of escape: the true God Himself–His wisdom, forgiveness, and freedom.
This is no different from what I see happening today–especially in
In her Dedication, Ann-Eliza pleads with the Mormon wives–desiring only to bring them into joy–in a passage that echoes Jesus' tears in Luke 19:41-42 and my prayer for everyone who is hurting in
I dedicate this book to you, as I consecrate my life to your cause. As long as God gives me life I shall pray and plead for your deliverance from the worse than Egyptian bondage in which you are held….You shrink from those whom God will soon lead to your deliverance, from those to whom I daily present your claims to a hearing and liberation, and who listen with responsive and sympathetic hearts.
Hope and pray! Come out of the house of bondage! Kind hearts beat for you! Open hands will welcome you! Do not fear that while God lives you shall suffer uncared for in the wilderness! This Christian realm is not “
Courage! The night of oppression is nearly ended, and the sun of liberty is rising in the heavens for you.
For all of you who have not yet seen and believed the true and glorious freedom of a life lived with God, I cry out with Ann-Eliza for your liberty.
Related posts:
- Beautiful, Alive, True Christianity
- Book Review: Too Good to Be True by Michael Horton
- True Compassion
- The Words of Joseph Smith, and a Little More Mouw
- More Than One True Meaning?: A Case For 'Multi-Objectivism'
- Book Review: The Feminist Mistake by Mary Kassian
Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page, Mormonism, Religion (General)
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February 4th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Amy,
Yes! Finally someone comes out and challenges the notion that “doing whatever I want” is freedom. My ability to sin or not sin is not freedom, its slavery. It drives me up a wall to hear people claim the ability to choose is freedom.
The quest, now, is defining what true freedom is. I know what I think, but I'll leave it up for discussion.
Brian
February 4th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
Hmmm. I'm not going to give a philosophical or even a theological definition, but a practical one along the same lines as this post. I would say that true freedom is when you finally see God as so much more beautiful, more desirable, and more glorious than any of the lesser things you've been holding onto that the sin that has kept you trapped in a circle (as you were compelled to return and return and return) suddenly doesn't seem worth as much as following God. You realize that your sin was lying to you when it said that if you didn't indulge it you would be missing out on something good. Instead, you see clearly that you're only missing out if you don't do as God would have you do in every moment–even if that means letting go of lesser things. Any compromise on that would cause you to miss out on experiencing the glory of God, and suddenly that's what you don't want to miss. You see God's way for what it is–solid and beautiful, and you see your sin for what it is, and it looks so thin and unsubstantial that you drop it and turn to God.
That's freedom.
February 4th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Amen. This is how I communicate true freedom: Living just as God made me to live, in perfect and complete fellowship with him through Jesus Christ by the Spirit, partaking only in his goodness and only in his love. And for me, the result of this experience is your post. When I see the beauty of Christ, when I taste and see the goodness of God, anything (no matter how good–even family) that calls me away from this experience is a calling into slavery, a calling into bondage.
February 6th, 2006 at 7:37 am
Ravi Zacharias's book Recapture the Wonder addresses this point very well.
-Justin
May 17th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Amy's discussion of true freedom is thought provoking. I don't see the correlation however with the Ann-Eliza Young story. Brigham Young had numerous wives and more than Ann-Eliza Young divorced him during his lifetime. Many of his wives remained happily married to him however.
To even begin to consider the LDS practice of polygamy you should begin with the context of LDS history: the Hans Mill Masacre, the Extermination Order in Missouri, the trek across the United States to the Salt Lake Valley. LDS women and men were murdered, raped and otherwise driven from their homes in New York, Ohio, Missouri and other locations. Polygmay helped serve the needs of a people that were not granted granted the protection of the sovereign.
And yes, the Deuteronomy reference points out that polygamy is only to be practiced when it was approved. For instance with Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. Or with Jacob's mulitple wives, from whom descended the twelve tribes of Israel.
Indeed, the LDS Church has backed the addition of a Constitutional ammendment defining marriage between a man and a woman. Another importnat point of context in the discussion of the former practice of polygamy in the LDS church.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
Aaron, thanks for stopping by!
My main point here is that when we try and grab for things we think will make us happy but are against what God wants for us, those things will make us miserable. That, of course, brings up the question of whether or not God has asked us, at least at some points in time, to enter into polygamy. So let me address what you've brought up here…
“the Deuteronomy reference points out that polygamy is only to be practiced when it was approved.”
To be fair, I do want to point out here that the verse doesn't actually say it “is only to be practiced when approved.” That would be reading a later, LDS interpretation into the text that isn't literally there. God never asked anyone to take on another wife in the Bible. In fact, if you look at the reasons (in the Bible, not LDS scriptures) for why both Abraham and Jacob took more wives, there's human sin involved (not trusting in God's promise, sibling rivalry and envy). The beautiful thing, though, is that God brings good out of the practices of our sinful societies–practices He never intended us to live under.
The Pearl of Great Price does offer justification for polygamy by adding into the Abraham story the idea that God asked Abraham to take Hagar as his wife in order to fulfill God's promise of descendents. (That may be what you're referring to here.) But even this contradicts Galatians 4 that says only Isaac's descendents are children of the promise, and so I don't think it's a valid justification.
What we do have explicitly is Paul's stipulation that the leaders of the church are to have only one wife (possibly based on the Law cited above and even farther back, on Adam and Eve–one woman for one man, the original design for mankind).
“Many of his wives remained happily married to him however.”
Have you ever had a chance to read the book? She paints a different picture (and I think, as a woman, I can say a very believable picture) of what life was like for women under polygamy through the eyes of someone who experienced it, including other women's stories and not just her own. (In fact, a Mormon friend of mine who's descended from one of the women Ann-Eliza talks about already knew the story Ann-Eliza tells about her situation, so I don't think people claim she made these things up.) It's hard to believe God would require men and women to enter into this situation. Permit, yes (as He permits us to maintain all sorts of customs that He has not prescribed for us), but require, no.
I do encourage you to read the book to get a fuller picture of polygamy so you can interpret what she describes for yourself. Remember that those women had nothing to compare their situation to, so they remained married because they were good women, resigned to do their duty and follow what they believed to be a directive from God. I don't think that necessarily speaks to their happiness.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
Hi Amy. It's Lynda–we talked Sunday night at Mariner's Church. There are a few pieces of the puzzle that you don't have yet when it comes to Mormons and polygamy. The book of Mormon makes clear that it agrees with you–monogamy is the preferred form of marriage. But it also says that God reserves the right to institute polygamy for the express purpose of “raising up seed unto Him” (The whole passage is in Jacob 2: 27Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.
29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.
30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”)
This is also what God was doing when Jacob had 12 sons by multiple wives. Contrary to your assumption, there is no scriptural indication that he sinned or displeased God in this. Would you have had him only be married to Leah, after his father-in-law tricked him into marrying her rather than Rachel, his true love? Your assumptions are showing. If a “one wife only rule” was so important, why didn't God give Moses a law saying that each man was only to have one wife. He gave hundreds of other detailed laws in Leviticus about what constituted sin, and no mention of this. He did say that if a man lay with his slave by force he then had to marry her. That would have presumably been a second marriage.
The Mormon church was a tiny group when it moved to Utah and reached a critical population mass because of polygamy. Every woman of child bearing age was thereby able to bear children. Without that population boost, the Mormons would have never grown to become the multi-million member force they are in the world today. Come to think of it, maybe that's why anti-Mormons dislike it so much. That it was a sacrifice to the women who lived it would not have disuaded the faithful ones from living it nonetheless. Mormons feel that their church has a distinct mission in “the Latter Days” as they regard the times they live in, and the fully committed ones feel that that mission is their reason and purpose–in their “purpose driven lives.” That Ann-Eliza had some miserable experiences would be as effective at stopping a faithful Mormon from obeying what they thought was the right thing to do in this matter, as the fact that my own parent's miserable marriage ended in divorce was from disuading me from marrying. I'm sorry she was unhappy. What kind of marriage did she think she was getting into? So what? As I recall, Leah, Jacob's first wife, was miserable too.