Why it has to be legal

Because "they" will never stop. In this case "it" is Polygyny, and "they" is Canada, but human nature is the same everywhere.

Christian Telegraph - "A top law official in Canada is considering an appeal after a court threw out polygamy charges against two men, who claimed the nation's Charter of Rights and Freedoms permitted them to have several wives, reports Ecumenical News International.

'The first order of business will be to read the decision in its entirety, which I have not done yet,' said Mike de Jong, attorney general of British Columbia, after the court's 23 September decision.

'Obviously, I will talk to officials within the ministry and a decision will be made around a possible appeal.' Winston Blackmore, aged 52, and James Oler, 44, from Bountiful, British Columbia, belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), an offshoot of the mainstream Mormon church, which formally renounced polygamy in 1890."

It has to be legal, or you are second class citizens at the back of the bus. In a way I hope Canada does appeal the ruling and takes it all the way to their highest court. Of course, Blackmore and Oler probably just want to get on with their lives.

I apologize for being away from this blog so long. The revelations and investigations surrounding Rozita Swinton and the FLDS and the Colorado Springs Police Department took up a lot of time, in addition, I was ill on and off again for the first part of this month. It did not completely incapacitate me, but it sapped my energy for such things.

Zygote or V12? Confronting the Church on Marriage, Part IIIa

An addendum to the "One Flesh" discussion with Woody Lauer. I have been patiently discussing (sometimes not so patiently) Genesis 2:24 with a poster named "el gayo" at CARM Discussion Forums. At times, I wondered why I was doing it. "El gayo's" steady, stubborn resistance forced the argument from the pro polygyny side into a refinement that yielded the following. I have modified the argument slightly so as to better fit this venue.

"There is nothing INHERENT in the passage Genesis 2:24, mandates or establishes monogamy.

'Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.'

The passage does not mention monogamy, it describes marriage. We know only that it refers to a marriage (the only marriage at that time) that was also monogamous.

We also know that the same marriage was a birth betrothal marriage. Here is the preceding section of Genesis 2, verses 18-23:

'And the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." '

Is the monogamy of that marriage important? It may be. It is just as self evident that we follow patterns of betrothal, from the earliest possible age if it is self evident from the passage that we follow the monogamous pattern.

It may be later that someone establishes a pattern of monogamy by referring back to this verse and the concept of one flesh, but the MERE REPETITION of the content of Genesis 2:24 cannot be said to establish monogamy any more than it would the practice of birth betrothal. That understanding must come directly from the repetition of the verse, and the commentary.

When Jesus repeats the verse, he emphasizes only that it is the PERMANENCE of Adam and Eve's union that he is interested in for the purposes of the discussion, he never discusses the monogamy of their marriage beyond the fact that he is discussing them, and we know they were monogamous.

But he is discussing them and we know they were betrothed also. For some reason we don't care about that part, we only seem to care about their monogamy.

The point is, that Genesis 2:24 does not prevent a man or a woman from marrying again over and over and over and over again. From the passage we would say that if they did, they would be husband or wife to that new spouse and be 'one flesh' with them. It is later that we learn a WIFE cannot undertake more than one spouse, but we never learn the same thing about a husband.

Most of us are conditioned to think it is one man one woman = marriage as if it were a zygote. Sperm comes together with egg. Something new is formed. Zygotes cannot unify again with other sperm. They are now closed systems.

Marriage may though, be more like a drop of water. One drop plus one drop is one bigger drop of water, that can be added to again and again and again until it's an ocean.

Maybe marriage is like an engine. One crankshaft (husband), one piston (wife), or maybe two wives/pistons, or perhaps as many as twelve. They're all engines. They're all one engine.

Some look at 'one flesh' and say 'Zygote.' Others look at one flesh and say 'engine' is a better illustration. Why is it a Zygote instead? There is no support for either notion in Genesis UNLESS you are going to adopt all aspects of the first marriage. This is why I mention birth betrothal. Both views are possible from the passage, neither are excluded.

Therefore, mere repetition of Genesis 2:24 doesn't establish monogamy as anything other than a possible form of marriage. Quoting it won't change that. Commenting on it as Jesus does in the New Testament, when he says 'see, the union was to be permanent,' is the only way discover how Adam and Eve's example, govern us."

It's Bigamy Stupid, not Polygamy

The crime, no matter how hard law enforcement tries to twist and turn in the creation of laws, and enforcement of them, is the legal registration of more than one marriage.

The Detroit Free Press - "(St. Clair Shores police Detective Margaret) Eidt said (Martha) Fleming married her second husband Jan. 30 at Christ Gospel Tabernacle Church, 30500 Harper, in St. Clair Shores. But she had been married to a man in Bay City since 1996.

Sometime shortly after her second marriage, she took the inheritance check from her second husband, cashed it in Harper Woods and took off, Eidt said.

The detective said a civil attorney representing the second husband discovered Fleming was already married. Eidt said Harper Woods police are investigating the theft of the inheritance check."

Nevertheless, the suspicion of bigamy remains probable cause when invading your home. By having your marriages be informal, instead of formal, you, as a polygynist, leave yourself perpetually open 24/7/365 to home invasion, by law enforcement.

You may not be legally registered with more than one spouse as Martha was, but your purporting to be married to more than one spouse, however tenuous, leaves you open to arrest and investigation with probable cause.

You have to hide and lay low as a result.

What sort of life is this for a Christian who is told NOT to hide their light under a bushel? Hat tip "Christian or Biblical Polygamy."

Who's Dr. Kurt?

Ok, they're starting to figure it out. "Dr. Kurt Anderson" of West Palm Beach asks "why not polygamy?" KurtAndersonville.

It's time-(UPDATED)

Someone needs to show up, in Vermont, and try to register more than one marriage. You of course will not be able to do it, but you'll set in motion the legal process that may make it happen.

Montpelier, VT (AHN) - "Vermont's gay marriage law began taking effect at exactly midnight on Tuesday, a little over four months after state lawmakers voted to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of the legislation and added to the number of states who have legalized same-sex marriages.

Couples and gay advocates will be marking the day with celebrations, one of which is a wedding reception in Essex that will benefit the Vermont People with AIDS Coalition and other groups.

Rallies will be held by members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church at the capital city, Montpelier, to protest the new marriage law, but one of the state's leading same-sex marriage groups, the Vermont Freedom to Marry, has urged supporters not to engage with the demonstrators, saying doing so 'would only lend relevance and newsworthiness' to their opponents." (September 1, 2009 7:48 a.m. EST)

It'll be too much of a zoo, and though you can probably hear the commotion, and perhaps see it from my house, I'm 5 miles away at work. Besides, I have no video equipment to tape and then share the business with you so we'll just let it happen.

Confronting the Church on Marriage, Part IV

I had claimed to Woody (Stewart Lauer) that the directive to Kings to not have רבה (rabah) wives is not a directive to have only one wife. It is a directive to have not too many wives.

This is a relative state which I believe to be defined roughly by the terms of concubines and their treatment in Exodus 21. A wife is owed regular consort (regular is relative), food and clothing. Poverty can overtake us all, but if a wife is deprived as a direct result of the addition of another wife, this is wrong. Exodus 21:10:

"If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish."

It should be noted that this is God himself speaking, and he's just finished up with the Ten Commandments in the preceding chapter, stating "thou shalt not commit adultery." I find it hard to believe then that God turns right around and without scowl or sign proceeds to regulate what we now regard as adultery. God says to provide for your wife or wives in their physical needs, including sexual relations. Depriving your wife of these things as the direct result of taking another wife, is wrong. Stewart "Woody" Lauer:

" 'Neither shall he multiply wives for himself (Deu 17:17 NAS),' is a command that Solomon violated by polygyny, irrespective of the wives’ citizenships."

I had mentioned the foreign origin of Solomon's wives and also said:

"You're arguing that a King could only possess one horse"

Woody:

"I don’t know who the 'you' is, but I make no such argument. Holladay gives the hifil [sic]* stem for this verb as, 'make many, increase.' Both NASB and KJV render it 'multiply', which means 'increase in number,' or 'make more numerous.' V 17b, when proscribing riches adds the adverb, 'greatly', thereby allowing possession of riches in moderation. As such, vv 16 and 17a are best taken as absolute proscriptions, prohibiting multiple wives and prohibiting what we might call a calvary [sic] or a chariotry. The king was the ruler of God’s people of old."

My first observation is that I am not a King. If it is found, ultimately, that this is indeed a prohibition against a King having two or more wives at a time, well, so be it. I am not a King. Woody also compares this to elders, and I have too, so we are in rough agreement there. I will deal with that issue in the next post.

I had also mentioned to Woody that the sin for which Solomon is chastised in scripture, is not the sin for which Woody chastises him. In Nehemiah 13:25-27 it says:

"I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, 'You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin. 'Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?' "

Nowhere is the number of Solomon's wives mentioned as the primary concern, though it seems almost certain to our sensibilities that his number was indeed too great and a violation of Deuteronomy 17:17. Nevertheless, scripture at least sees this as a lessor problem, choosing not to make overt mention of it. The Bible also does not chide Solomon for excessive wealth or horses, both of which he also seemed to have in excess. Apparently, these things are not as big a deal as we would like to make them even if wrong, and it may well have been that Solomon's primary sin was the foreign nature of his wives, and the greater number of them he took, were of foreign origin. Nehemiah may be saying, "What's the real problem here?" and saying that if you took the foreigners out of the mix, there would be no problem at all. In any case Solomon is never directly chided for his many marriages and concubines, only his foreign ones.

Woody also tries to sneak in the idea that it's "one wife," "not a lot of horses," and "not a whole lot of gold." I'll accept only the last. In context, Deuteronomy 17:16-17 is parallel in construction. It shows two unlike things, and says identical things about them. In essence, the passage says "horse or wives, Kings are not to "רבה (rabah)" them, whatever that is. Here is the passage:

"Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply [רבה (rabah)] horses, since the LORD has said to you, 'You shall never again return that way.' He shall not multiply [רבה (rabah)] wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly [מאד (meh·ode')] increase [רבה (rabah)] silver and gold for himself."

In the last case, Woody's contention is supported. Using the modifier "meh·ode' " to go with "רבה (rabah)." But in the cases of the first use of "rabah" in verse 16, the "stem" and "aspect" of the verb is the same as in the case of it's use with wives in verse 17. It is the "Hiphil" stem and "imperfect" aspect. This renders the two constructions parallel. Furthermore, there are some other uses of the same stem and aspect that are worth looking into. Genesis 16:10:

"Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, 'I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.' "(NAS)

Or Genesis 17:2:

"I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly."

Genesis 22:17:

"...I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies."

Genesis 28:3:

"May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples."

This simply cannot be a word that is confined to the use "more than one." As it is used, in the immediate context, and others, the Hebrew "rabah" in the Hiphil stem and imperfect aspect means "a bunch." It may mean "a really big bunch."

If interpreted to mean "more than one wife" which is distinctly inconsistent with it's usage elsewhere by Moses in other books, it would also have the effect of limiting a King to one horse. The sentence construction again, is parallel. Whatever is said about a wife, is also being said about a horse. If a King is not to have more than one wife, he is also being said not to have more than one horse. If a King lives in a way that is instructive to the rest of the populace, then indeed we are to have only one wife, as the King would, and indeed, only one horse. This would make animal husbandry problematic, and getting horses a really big problem because in this same passage we are told that a King was not to go down to Egypt again, for the purposes of multiplying horses. Why not say "don't have horses at all?"

I am not one to say that the translations are in error. I think they are more than adequate, whether it be the King James, or the NASB or the ESV. They do get spun over time though, as politicians do focus groups and find buzz words, theologians work the margins of word meanings until we become accustomed to hearing them in contexts that dictate meanings not shared by the original text. Multiply has interesting meanings. The word "rabah" is translated "Multiply" or "Many" depending on your version. In English, depending on context, two is not many, nor may it be an accurate rendering of multiply. It's just barely multiply, and it's certainly not many. It can't be said to dictate only one wife, though it might, if read a certain way in the English. In the Hebrew, it simply can't be said to dictate one wife.

Next, I'll deal with Woody's similar contention on elders. And with a surprise admission on his part.



* Woody in this case, an alternate spelling, not an apparently incorrect one.

Interlude and Panhandle, then on with our regularly scheduled programming

Writing this series on my interaction with the OPC is a very taxing pursuit. Outwardly, it may not seem to be, after all, what is writing anyway? It's just typing and typing and typing. One of the worst forms of writing can be blogging, which is what Vermont Polygamy is, a blog.

Bad writing and blogging are not necessarily hand in hand. At times I do look back on some things I have written, make minor edits, and in other cases, wonder how anybody can understand the tangled gobbledy gook that flowed off my fingertips. I rarely write with an outline, though at times I do. In being timely, it's hard to do that.

As a consequence, I sometimes write, am interrupted, write, am interrupted again, table something for a day, write some more, and so on. The result is often not what I fully intended. Sometimes the result is something even after post publishing tweaks, I don't like very much. I rarely delete any material on either of my blogs. If I blather, honest editorial policy is to leave that blather out there to be criticized.

It is my intention to weave the continuing series on the church discussions into a book. The brief exchange with the intelligentsia of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church provides more than adequate fodder to characterize the position of the Reformation on marriage and monogamy or more accurately, marriage as equivalent to monogamy. It provides me with more than adequate fodder to refute it.

As a reformed person, I can take no public political position, without reconciling it to my religious belief. I do not pretend to take my religion on the road, and force others into accepting it in practice, but I can ask for my legal cul de sac in which to practice my religion, this is what I do.

After this series on the OPC, I will go on with the book, and blogging about the progress of Same Sex Marriage in Vermont. There is a limit to this. As I point out at Modern Pharisee, I am becoming increasingly more popular as a blogger. An anonymous commenter says this must be because so many people wish to keep track of me and what I'm doing. As if. No followers and all surveillance? That would be a commentary on paranoia like I've rarely seen. Not mine though. It would seem that the forces of polygamy watching are populated by high school educated young mothers. At least that's what the site stats of "the Pharisee" indicate.

Ultimately, this is another mention that I need real support to continue the effort. With as many of you as are out there, that are supportive, there should be some support. I am not among the idle rich, I am among the working renting population. I live paycheck to paycheck. I could do this far better if it was all I had to do. To do this in the future, it may very well be that this can be all I do. Just picture yourself as my employer, with me on the evening news espousing even what this generation views as a deviant lifestyle. I would be on to a sole proprietorship of nothing and speedy bankruptcy in nothing flat.

I am a registered lobbyist in the State of Vermont for this cause. The next legislative session is this coming January. If I can't do this alone as a livelihood, I really can't do it much longer, other than as a simple observer. I'm not sure how much interest I have in that.

I am increasingly pointing out to my friends in this cause, some practicing polygynists, and some merely advocating for the practice, that I have no desire merely to serve as a front for men who want greater variety on their sexual menu. This is the frequent criticism of the average polygynist, is that they are simply sex crazed men looking for a booty call that they can make look legitimate through religion.

I may be forced to at least superficially, agree with them.

Zero support means that at best the Christian Polygynist is hiding out in their lifestyle, laying low, not calling attention to themselves, and bed hopping. I understand this. Attention means problems. Ask the FLDS. String the words compound, polygamy and religion together and it reads like an engraved invitation to a visit from the SWAT team and the FBI. Who would want that?

Unless though, it is the intention of such persons to hide their lights perpetually under a bushel (albeit a bushel with lots of tail in it), it's time to come out in support of the effort. Don't, and I won't.

I am as Dr. Andrew Selle has named me, the leading public advocate and debater of the cause of Christian polygyny, in the world. Musings about site stats on my other blog are designed to show you that people care about the cause, from a pro polygyny standpoint.

Faith without works though, is nothing. I would very much enjoy an exchange of ideas on this topic. You can comment here, or you can email me.

hughmcbryde@gmail.com