Meet Mormons

A: While there was a time when Mormons practiced polygamy, for over 100 years the practice has been outlawed by the church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is based on a few key principles, one of which is modern-day revelation. We believe that God reveals His will to chosen prophets, selected now as they were in Biblical times. God is an unchanging God (yesterday, today, and forever), but sometimes His will is different at different times to different children.

Picture an eleven year-old girl asking her father for the keys to the car. He refuses, telling her that she cannot, under any circumstances, drive the car.

Five years later that same girl asks her father the same question. He tosses her the keys, telling her to have fun with her friends.

Did the father change? Or did the circumstance change?

This principle of continuous revelation is evident in the Bible. We read that Noah was faced with a watery problem, about which the Lord counseled "Make thee an ark. . . ." Not too many pages later we read of another man faced with an issue of water. Moses and the Children of Israel met the Red Sea, and the Lord commanded "stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it."

Did God change? Or did the circumstances change?

This is the same principle that guides our church today. Even though in the Bible there were men authorized to practice polygamy (Jacob, Solomon, and David), and even though a few men in the day of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were directed to practice polygamy, we believe that God has since revealed that polygamy is not to be practiced.

And that is why in the rare case that a member of the LDS church is found practicing polygamy, that member promptly loses membership in the church.


A few helpful links:
*Explanation of practice and discontinuation of polygamy here.
*The Church's official beliefs regarding the family: The Family: A Proclamation to the World
*Video explanation here